Transcription

3 Remunicipalisation: Putting Water Back into Public Hands Edited by Martin Pigeon, David A. McDonald, Olivier Hoedeman and Satoko Kishimoto March 2012 Published by Transnational Institute, Amsterdam ISBN Contents of the book may be quoted or reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that the source of information is acknowledged.

4 Acknowledgments We would like to thank all those who assisted us in the research for this book for the time they took to meet with us in person, by telephone or via . In particular we want to thank Myanza Mwadhini, Rosemary Mukami Kariuki, Nestory Masswe, Vicky Cann, Laura Hucks, Shelly Gordon, Gus Oliveira, Eric McGuiness, Greg Hoath, Lynda Lukasik, Dan McKinnon, Sam Merulla, Charles Santiago, Anil Netto, Teo Yen Hua, Subramaniam Pillay, Jaseni Bin Maidinsa, Mohd Farid Nawawi, Ratna Devi, Marimuthu Nadason, Mark Sproule-Jones, Marc Laimé, Yves Stefanovitch, Anne Le Strat, François Leblanc and the staff of DAWASCO and DAWASA. Invaluable editorial and production assistance was provided by Madeleine Bélanger Dumontier. Ricardo Santos was responsible for the book cover design and layout. Finally, funding for the research was provided by the International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC), via the Municipal Services Project, and by Oxfam Novib, via the Transnational Institute.

5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Case Study Locations Chapter One Remunicipalisation Works! David A. McDonald Chapter Two Une eau publique pour Paris: Symbolism and Success in the Heartland of Private Water Martin Pigeon Chapter Three From Fiasco to DAWASCO: Remunicipalising Water Systems in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Martin Pigeon Chapter Four Aguas Públicas: Buenos Aires in Muddled Waters Daniel Azpiazu and José Esteban Castro Chapter Five Who takes the risks? Water Remunicipalisation in Hamilton, Canada Martin Pigeon Chapter Six Soggy Politics: Making Water Public in Malaysia Martin Pigeon Chapter Seven Looking to the Future: What Next For Remunicipalisation? Olivier Hoedeman, Satoko Kishimoto and Martin Pigeon About the Authors Get Involved! Index

7 Putting Water Back into Public Hands Malaysia Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania 7

8 Chapter One R e m u n i c i by David A. McDonald p a l i s a t i o n W o r k s! It s not an easy word to say, but remunicipalisation is a growing and exciting trend in the water sector. Defined as the transfer of water services from private companies to municipal authorities, remunicipalisation shows that the public sector can outperform the private sector and can be an effective water provider anywhere in the world. This book reviews five recent examples of remunicipalisation in Paris (France), Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Hamilton (Canada) and in a series of Malaysian municipalities and discusses why it is happening, how the transformations take place, how well the services have performed under public control, and lessons learned from these experiences. The reasons for remunicipalisation are diverse, but stem in no small part from the failures of water privatisation. Even the World Bank has called for a rethink of privatisation policies, 1 having recognised the regulatory problems associated with multinational water providers, and having seen the effects of a profit-driven service delivery model on workers, low-income households and the environment. As a result, there has been less direct privatisation of water services since the 1980s and 90s, but the commercialisation trend continues, largely through the use of public-private partnerships. 2 In effect, the World Bank and many United Nations agencies still advocate for private sector participation in water services and continue to invest in think tanks, conferences and publications that promote and finance private involvement in water services around the world. 3 8 Not surprisingly, resistance to these commercialisation trends continues as well. From street protests in Cochabamba, Bolivia, that forced multinational water companies out of the city in 2000, to grassroots movements protecting groundwater supplies from bottled water companies in India and the US, to research and academic writing about the problems of water commodification, mobilisation against the practice of water privatisation remains strong.

9 Remunicipalisation Works! Municipalities are increasingly involved in this resistance, in part because they have witnessed the effects of privatisation first-hand, making this level of government a critically important player in public-private debates. Although some municipalities remain supportive of private sector involvement in water, many are frustrated with the broken promises, service cut-offs to the poor, the lack of integrated planning, and pressures from international financial institutions that force them to contract out to private firms. As a result, many municipalities have begun to push back. This is not (yet) a complete reversal of the privatisation tide, but it is a riptide of sorts, inspiring practitioners and policy advocates from around the world to explore a new counter-narrative to the neoliberal ideology of market-based service delivery solutions. 4 Inspiration is not enough, however. Discussions of remunicipalisation have been energetic but anecdotal, with little understanding of the commonalities between various experiments and no clear research methodologies for evaluating their results. Although each remunicipalisation experience is different it is essential that we develop a comparative understanding of why they have happened (or not), how they operate and whether they can and should be attempted elsewhere. This book is therefore an effort to advance academic and policy debates about public water services by tightening our conceptual understanding of remunicipalisation and situating the discussion within a larger body of literature on alternatives to privatisation. Another objective is to be critically positive about remunicipalisation, which is to say that we want to celebrate public water provision but in ways that recognise the constraints and limitations of public reforms in the hope of identifying means by which remunicipalisation can be more successful. There are concerns with all of the remunicipalisation experiences we investigated for this book and room for improvement on a number of fronts. It would be unproductive to ignore or downplay these issues. It should also be noted that this is not the first time the world has witnessed (re)municipalisation debates. Most contemporary water services around the world started as private enterprises (as early as the mid-1800s), but as the inefficiency of private sector providers became increasingly evident, and as private companies denied water services to the poor (contributing to outbreaks of cholera and other illnesses), local governments began to municipalise these services for the first time. The city of London, for example, went from a nine-headed monopoly in the 1850s, to a centrally coordinated public utility in the early 1900s. 5 No less a figure than liberal economist John Stuart Mill criticised the byzantine inefficiencies of balkanised private sector supply, noting that a business of real public importance can only be carried on advantageously upon so large a scale as to render the liberty of competition almost illusory it is much better to treat it at once as a public function. 6 It was an error, he argued, to believe that competition among utility companies actually kept prices down. Collusion was the inevitable result, not cheaper prices. 9

10 Chapter One The first prominent city manager in the UK to endorse this philosophy and to apply it in practice was the Liberal Radical Joseph Chamberlain. As mayor of Birmingham in the 1870s, he committed himself to this new civic gospel: All monopolies which are sustained in any way by the State ought to be in the hands of the representatives of the people, by whom they should be administered, and to whom their profits should go. 7 Chamberlain succeeded in bringing gas and water under municipal control, the former, primarily for its profits, the latter, in pursuit of long-overdue public health reforms. The Water Works, Chamberlain argued, should never be a source of profit, as all profit should go in the reduction of the price of water. 8 In some respects, then, the debates about remunicipalisation today are the same as those that took place a century ago. Municipalities remain concerned about the power of private corporations over essential services in their towns and cities, and the implications this has for social and environmental welfare. We are also witnessing similar concerns about financial crises and the growing polarisation of wealth, contributing to a healthy skepticism of market reforms in general and reinvigorating resistance to privatisation in particular. Less optimistically, the parallels with these earlier municipalisation efforts raise troubling questions about the nature of the state, and in whose interests public water is actually being run particularly when it comes to corporatised water utilities run on privatesector operating principles, a point we return to repeatedly in the book. Nevertheless, motivation can be taken from the fact that water privatisation was once before seen as a dismal failure at the municipal level and a comparable trend is recurring today. Choice of case studies Decisions about which sites to examine in this study were based on several criteria. First, we opted for locations where remunicipalisation had been fully completed, and where sufficient time had elapsed to draw reasonable conclusions about their operation although each case is still very much a work-in-progress. Second, we chose a geographically disperse set of examples, with sites in Europe (Paris), Africa (Dar es Salaam), Latin America (Buenos Aires), North America (Hamilton), and Asia (Malaysia). Third, we chose sites with very different political, economic and geophysical contexts. 10 The Malaysian case is not, strictly speaking, one of remunicipalisation, due to the fact that it brought about a national-level set of reforms that affected many different municipalities. We included it because of this multi-scalar feature, however, given how it illustrates the potential for nation-wide reforms to bring change to a large number of municipalities instead of scattered, stand-alone efforts.

11 Remunicipalisation Works! The fact that the examples are drawn from the North and the South serves to illustrate the global nature of this remunicipalisation trend and some of the universalities associated with it. This North-South focus also highlights ongoing resource and power differentials between governments in higher- and lower-income countries, with the cities of Hamilton and Paris having much greater fiscal and infrastructural capacity to bring water in-house than municipalities in Argentina, Malaysia and Tanzania, where human and financial resources for water services are more scarce. Similarly, non-governmental organisations and labour unions in the North tend to be better resourced for resistance to privatisation and promoting alternatives than their counterparts in the South, and often have more political space to air their views. One lead that cities in the South have in this regard is the more highly charged nature of water debates and the life-and-death nature of problems associated with water privatisation. Scares of e-coli infection in Canadian municipalities in the early 2000s helped catalyse support for remunicipalisation in Hamilton, but these concerns pale in comparison to the disease burdens and service cut-offs associated with privatised water services in Argentina, Malaysia and Tanzania where large percentages of the population have little or no access to basic water and sanitation and where diarrhea, cholera and other illnesses remain major causes of concern. It is in tragic environments such as these that resistance to privatisation often burns hottest, and where the potential for longer-term (grassroots) political commitment to change is strongest. Tough opposition does not necessarily lead to successful alternatives to privatisation, but it can certainly speed change along. Research methods As noted above, this is the first comprehensive and comparative study of contemporary water remunicipalisation to be undertaken. But with innovation comes methodological challenges, the most important of which is the lack of an established remunicipalisation literature to draw on. Complicating matters is the dearth of literature on alternatives to privatisation in general, with the vast majority of anti-privatisation writing being a critique of privatisation rather than an exploration of alternative public service options. Nevertheless, research for this book has benefited from methodologies that have been developed for previous work undertaken by the groups coordinating this study Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), the Municipal Services Project (MSP) and Transnational Institute (TNI). Extensive studies by the Reclaiming Public Water Network coordinated by TNI and CEO, and involving dozens of organisations around the world provided a rich background of empirical insights into remunicipalisation and an extensive network of contacts, 9 while the development of new research methods on alternatives 11

12 Chapter One to privatisation more broadly provided additional coherence and transparency to our comparative studies. 10 The point of departure in the research was to ask questions about the history of the original privatisation in each municipality, and the events and conditions that led to its demise. This historical overview was drawn based on interviews with people involved in the privatisation, reviews of secondary literature, assessments of budget documentation, and so on. Interpretations of privatisation experiences are subject to debate, of course, but in each case the episode has left significant structural, financial and ideological legacies that shaped the direction of remunicipalisation and often constrained the potential for public sector success. More difficult was the evaluation of the remunicipalisation experience itself. For this assessment we drew on a normative set of criteria for success that had been developed for the study of alternatives to privatisation referred to above. 11 Our objective was to establish a universal set of criteria against which we could evaluate the success (or otherwise) of a remunicipalised service, while allowing for differences between the case studies. As Hachfeld et al note, there is no exemplary model of good or progressive public water management, 12 but it is important to establish clear and explicit criteria against which one can assess the outcomes of remunicipalisation and compare the experiences across time and place. The criteria we have selected should come as little surprise to those familiar with the debates about privatisation; many are the polar opposites of what is seen to be wrong with privatisation, such as lack of transparency, inequality and unaccountability. We have also used criteria that are unique to public services, such as public ethos and solidarity, and opted for criteria (such as equity) with sufficient elasticity of meaning to allow for variations in interpretation. Finally, our criteria are also intended to challenge or rule out many neoliberal interpretations of success, such as marketised notions of efficiency that limit discussions of service performance to narrow financial terms. 12 The research criteria we employed are summarised in Table 1.1. Not all of these criteria were examined in depth in every case, but interviews and literature reviews were informed by these measures of success and allowed us to develop data on the operating principles and practices of the remunicipalised water services. Further investigation will reveal more detailed information, and the fragile nature of some cases suggests that current performance could change on short notice. Nevertheless, the information collected here offers a more transparent and comprehensive glimpse into remunicipalisation than has been available to date. In this regard, the book should be seen more as research-inprogress than as a final statement on remunicipalisation.

13 Remunicipalisation Works! Finally, four of the case studies were undertaken by Martin Pigeon from CEO who travelled to Dar es Salaam, Hamilton, Malaysia and Paris for the research. The fifth study on Buenos Aires was conducted by Daniel Azpiazu and José Esteban Castro, with the same terms of reference and with close research collaboration and editing from the research team. Fieldwork began in late 2010 and was completed by mid Key findings of the research As with any complex system the devil is in the details. Nowhere is this maxim truer than in the politically charged environment of water remunicipalisation. It is essential, therefore, that each case study be taken on its own merit and be read closely. There are, however, some common findings that can be highlighted here, summarised into what we consider to be positive and critical lessons. The former showcase the most encouraging results from the research, while the latter highlight more ambiguous outcomes, such as the ongoing presence of a commercialised logic in public water management. Neither are inevitable products of remunicipalisation but both help to advance our conceptual and political understanding of this growing trend in the sector. Positive lessons Remunicipalisation works Though not perfect and never guaranteed, the examples in this book demonstrate that water services can be transferred from private to public ownership and management with little disruption of service and with extremely positive results. In each case the remunicipalised entity offered more equitable, more transparent and more efficient services than the private sector provider that preceded it, with a higher quality of services and with better long-term sustainability. Financially, there were significant direct savings for most of the municipalities some 35 million in the first year in Paris, and about C$6 million in the first three years of remunicipalisation in Hamilton some of which was realised immediately when profittaking for private management fees was removed. Efficiency gains were also achieved through good, sensible public management. Moreover, short-term savings boosted reinvestments in longer-term infrastructure development, which will in turn help avoid future cost burdens associated with the health and environmental disasters of privatisation, much of which was borne by the state in the past. Just as important as the cost savings are the philosophical shifts that have taken place in water services: the perspective changed from a narrow, profit-oriented one to one involving a wider range of social and political objectives. From ensuring water access for the 13

14 Chapter One Table 1.1 Criteria used to evaluate remunicipalisation 14 Equity Participation in decision making Efficiency Quality of service Is availability of the service equitable for different social groups? Is the quality and quantity of the service equitable? Are prices equitable? Is equity formalised, legalised or institutionalised in some way? Is the depth and scope of participation adequate? Is participation equitable? Is participation formalised, legalised or institutionalised in some way? Is the model of participation sustainable? Is the service delivered in a financially efficient manner? Are adequate investments being made in long-term maintenance? Do efficiency gains undermine other potentially positive outcomes? Do efficiency gains take into account other services and/or levels of government? Is the overall quality of the service good? Is quality improving? Accountability Are service providers accountable to end users? Is accountability formalised, legalised or institutionalised in some way? Transparency Does the general public understand the operating mandates of the service provider? Are decisions about service delivery regularly communicated to the public? Is transparency formalised, legalised or institutionalised in some way? Quality of the workplace Sustainability Solidarity Public ethos Transferability Do frontline workers participate in the policy-making of the service? Are workers paid a fair salary and benefits? Are there adequate numbers of workers to ensure quality, safety, sustainability? Are there good relations between frontline workers, managers and end users of the service? Is there equity among workers? Are there sufficient financial resources available to ensure successful continuity of the service? Is there sufficient political support for remunicipalisation at different levels of government? Is the service using natural resources in a sustainable way? Does the service help build solidarity between workers, community, bureaucrats, politicians, NGOs, end users? Does the service help to build solidarity between different service sectors (e.g. with public health officials)? Does the service help to build solidarity with other levels of state? Does the model help to create/build a stronger public ethos around service delivery? Does the model promote thinking and dialogue about concepts of public ownership and control? Does the service model explicitly oppose privatisation and commercialisation? Is the model transferable to other places (in whole or in part)?

15 Remunicipalisation Works! poor in Buenos Aires, to a reunified and consistent management of the entire water cycle in Paris, many remunicipalised water entities have demonstrated their ability to think beyond their sectoral boundaries and accounting silos to be more holistic in their planning and action. Contrary to the privatisation argument that politics is bad for water management, these public providers have demonstrated that politics is an inevitable and necessary part of decision making and service delivery. It is a question of how these politics are managed and the nature of the politics being discussed. Staff morale has also improved among frontline workers and management, notably in Buenos Aires and Hamilton. Instead of sitting on the sidelines in frustration as private water companies fail to live up to their expectations, public water employees are more engaged in the planning and operation of water services than they were in the past and feel part of a larger public service network and ethos. We do not want to overstate this philosophical change: water workers in Paris have been largely unaffected by remunicipalisation, and in Malaysia trade unions have had little involvement in the discussions about water reforms. It is also difficult to measure criteria such as work satisfaction, and there are additional concerns about the depth of commitment that workers have to notions of publicness (discussed below). Nevertheless, the pride-of-work expressed by many of the employees interviewed for this research was palpable and suggests a commitment to public water services that goes beyond the narrow financial and technocratic concerns that dominate private water management. Shifts to public worldwide The fact that remunicipalisation is taking place on every continent serves to demonstrate that it can happen anywhere. The Paris remunicipalisation is particularly note-worthy given that city s symbolic role in water privatisation; two of the largest and most influential private water companies in the world, Veolia and Suez, are headquartered in Paris and have run the city s water services at different stages since It was not an easy transition, but if decades of private sector inertia and entrenched corporate power can be overcome in Paris there is hope for most other places in the world. The growing phenomenon of remunicipalisation also challenges the myth that privatisation is irreversible. Often used, understandably, as a tactic by anti-privatisation activists to argue that water should not be privatised in the first place, there is a need to revisit the full import of this claim. More importantly, there is a need to revisit what we mean by public water, particularly in countries in the global South where public services have often been under-funded, unequal, non-transparent and open to corruption. In other words, remunicipalisation should not be seen as a linear, two-way street between polarised notions of private versus state delivery, but rather as a remaking and rethinking of what it means to be public, and a revisiting of how we define successful water services. 15

16 Chapter One Herein lays a key challenge for those wanting to remunicipalise their water systems. As encouraging as it may be that so many places are taking water services back from the private sector, there is no blueprint for how it is done and old-school models of top-down state planning may not be seen as progress at all. This challenge does not make it any less urgent to remunicipalise, but it does raise the bar in terms of what we should expect from a successful public transition. It should also be emphasised that remunicipalisation can be managed completely at a local level. Although successive national governments were involved in the case of Dar es Salaam, and even more so in the multi-sited case of Malaysia, remunicipalisation can occur within the jurisdictional boundaries of a local authority, making it easier for local groups to mobilise and advocate for change. Small towns and district municipalities can also bring water back in-house. Having said that, watersheds often cross political boundaries, and under-funded municipalities are increasingly desperate for capital and operating revenues, requiring some intergovernmental coordination. There is also merit in thinking in national or regional terms when considering a mass remunicipalisation strategy, particularly in Europe where dozens of private water contracts will be coming up for review in the next few years (see the concluding chapter of this book for further discussion). Privatisation is its own worst enemy Helping the remunicipalisation trend is the failure of water privatisation, in all its guises. In four of the five cases in this book, it was the (near) collapse of privatisation that precipitated the move to remunicipalise. The situation was disastrous in two cases (Buenos Aires, Dar es Salaam) and problematic in two others (Hamilton, Malaysia). In Paris, private water provision was not a failure per se, but it was clear that the two private companies were reaping profits that could be kept in public hands. In all cases it became obvious that the private water companies put short-term profit ahead of long-term sustainability, and selective service delivery ahead of broad-based equity, treating citizens like consumers and water like a commodity. 16 Significantly, it was bureaucrats and politicians who recognised these problems and began to wonder why water had been privatised in the first place. Some of this awareness was triggered by a growing global critique of privatisation, but the local flaws were so glaring that even those who had previously supported privatisation turned against it. The fact that most of the senior policy makers interviewed for this research were generally in favour of market-oriented policies, and even supportive of privatisation in other sectors, makes this rejection of water privatisation all the more poignant and damning.

17 Remunicipalisation Works! Privatisation, in other words, is its own worst enemy. Alternatives to privatisation are not so readily apparent, however, making it all the more important to discuss the details of remunicipalisation well in advance rather than scrambling to fill a corporate void after private provision collapses. Critical lessons Reversing privatisation is not easy As encouraging as the momentum behind water remunicipalisation is, the technical and political difficulties associated with making this shift cannot be underestimated. Even where political will is strong and financial and technical capacity exists, reverting to public ownership and management is fraught with difficulties. There is institutional memory lost, degraded assets, poison pills left by the private company, communication and accounting systems that do not mesh with public sector systems, and so on. The case studies in this book provide the details of some of these challenges, but even these are only brief overviews of extremely complicated private-to-public transitions. It is truly in these details that the devil of remunicipalisation is to be found. Political mobilisation to initiate such a process is difficult enough. The really demanding part comes with the grunt work on the ground to make it happen in practice. From equipment inventories, to amalgamating unions, to a change in service delivery cultures, remunicipalisation requires hundreds of people working long hours in stressful conditions under tight timelines. This is not the high profile politicking of resistance, but the tedious, behind-the-scenes grind of institutional and ideological reform that requires sustained attention to detail. In some respects, remunicipalising water is even more difficult than creating water services from scratch. The deep asset deficit left by many private water companies means that municipalities are working with decrepit equipment and collapsing infrastructure that can be more expensive to repair than to replace and build anew. Private firms have also demonstrated that they can be politically difficult, sabotaging transition efforts to try and undermine the public provider. In each of the cases discussed in this book the private companies refused to release critical operational information, attempted to take the municipalities to court for breach of contract, or initiated counter-propaganda campaigns in an effort to undercut the credibility of the remunicipalisation initiatives. The fact that these anti-remunicipalisation efforts were unsuccessful in each case speaks volumes to the commitment of those involved in the transformation. It also lays bare the gritty, selfinterested nature of private sector service providers and underscores the argument noted earlier that public water services should never be privatised in the first place (with the proviso, of course, that if they are privatised it can and should be reversed!). 17

18 Chapter One Finally, it must be noted that donor funding cannot be relied on for remunicipalisation efforts. After decades of generous (and ongoing) political and financial support for privatisation from international financial institutions and bilateral donors, these development organisations have effectively ignored the remunicipalisation trend. Funding for research on remunicipalisation is a drop in the bucket compared to what is spent on pro-commercialisation research and conferences by donors, while support for the implementation of remunicipalisation is practically non-existent (with the exception of limited funding for public-public partnerships from UN-Habitat 13 ). In some cases international donors even have attempted to undermine remunicipalisation efforts, making the transition to public services an even more difficult one (such as the World Bank s attempts to block remunicipalisation in Dar es Salaam, as discussed in Chapter Three of this book). No guarantee of a public ethos Perhaps the most important lesson of all is what remunicipalisation tells us about the meaning of public. Many if not most of the officials interviewed for this research remain captive to the neoliberal logic of new public management and resistant to welfarist notions of service delivery such as cross-subsidisation for the poor. There has been a dramatic ideological shift over the past three decades in the training and management of public employees around the world due in part to the good governance agenda of the World Bank and this trend is evident in each of the cases in this book. Entrenched neoliberal beliefs in market-based incentives, ring-fenced accounting, cost-reflexive pricing, and competition within and between government departments has transformed the ways in which people think about and manage public services, raising questions about the potential for deep reform in the public sector. 14 Corporatisation is the term used to describe services that are wholly owned and operated by the state but run on private sector operating principles. 15 This arrangement typically involves the creation of a stand-alone water utility, directed by government but operating as a separate legal entity and largely dependent on its own revenues for operation. Cross-subsidisation from other sectors or levels of government is discouraged, while performance evaluation is generally conducted on narrow cost accounting terms and senior managers are paid based on the financial health of their company. 18 In some cases these corporatised managers are more dogmatic in their adherence to market principles than their private sector counterparts (partly due to the threat of privatisation if they do not prove themselves to be efficient ). Such public service providers have denied services to low-income communities because of the high costs of delivering them, and service cut-offs are often used to punish non-payment. Some providers simply limit services to low-income households to a pre-defined level of basic needs. 16

19 Remunicipalisation Works! Of the cases in this book, Dar es Salaam is the most problematic in this regard, with the new public managers of DAWASCO using language and policies that sound much like the private company they replaced. It is encouraging that water services are back in public hands, but DAWASCO management s failure to take equity and public engagement more seriously is a major concern. Low-income households continue to be marginalised and managers seem reluctant to think in more holistic terms, even flirting with ways to (re)introduce market incentives into the newly remunicipalised organisation. Similar ideological currents were detected in the other case studies as well. The most common argument given by interviewees for remunicipalisation was not equity or public solidarity, but the fact that it saves money and is more efficient than a private contract. These are not unimportant criteria, of course. Nor is a concern with saving money necessarily neoliberal. These narrow financial preoccupations are, however, suggestive of a mindset still deeply embroiled in market ideology. Changing these attitudes will not happen overnight or with superficial technocratic reforms. Nor can it be forced on people. A different public sector philosophy will take sustained democratic efforts, possibly requiring a generational shift. The good news is that a deeper rethink of the meaning of public is required in any event. As noted above, some public services have performed poorly or have been non-existent, making a rethink unavoidable. But even where the public sector has performed well which describes the vast majority of water services in the global North there are good reasons for thoughtful reform. Keynesian-era water services were often top-down and non-participatory and seldom as efficient as they could have been. They were also typically part of a larger Fordist model of development that aimed to support rapid growth in private sector industrialisation and market consumption, assisting corporate expansion and undermining environmental sustainability. 17 Experiments with public participation in water services planning, worker cooperatives, community water systems and other innovative models of service delivery are challenging these older models of public water delivery and demonstrating the potential for water systems that push the boundaries of what we mean by public service. 18 Remunicipalisation cannot be an unquestioned return to what was offered before privatisation. It must be an improvement on what is meant by public and an expansion of the democratic terms of engagement. Bringing in the state and organised labour The reality of complex and expensive water systems is such that governments must play a critical role in service delivery reform. Collaboration of state and non-state actors will be 19

20 Chapter One easier in locations where senior bureaucrats and politicians have committed themselves to progressive change, but even where states seem impervious to cooperation mechanisms for state-society interaction it will be essential for successful transitions to public water entities. Labour involvement is also critical. Public sector unions have been marginalised from many of the debates about remunicipalisation, despite the fact that frontline workers have important insights into operational challenges and opportunities and public sector unions have been at the forefront of opposition to privatisation at a global level. 19 Poor labour relations with managers are part of the problem here, but so too has antagonism between unions and social movements been a concern at times, with public sector workers sometimes seen as being primarily interested in protecting their own jobs. Some unions have made impressive strides in addressing these tensions and it is important that good relations with communities and social movements be fostered. 20 Add to this mix a diverse collection of non-governmental organisations and academics attempting to intervene in remunicipalisation debates and there is an obvious need for better coordination of pro-public mobilisation. This is not to suggest that there should be a single voice or a simple consensus on what remunicipalisation should look like. The debates are too new and too complicated for that. Nor would we advocate the kind of blueprint models for reform that have motivated the single-minded rush to privatise. Remunicipalisation is necessarily different in every place, and versions of public may take on very different hues. Nevertheless, there is a need for better coordination and sharing of ideas. Government officials, labour unions, social movements, NGOs and others will need to be part of this coordinated conversation. Research on remunicipalisation must take these internal political dynamics seriously. 20 Conclusion Remunicipalisation is an inspiring and promising development in the water sector. The five case studies provided in this book demonstrate the potential for reclaiming public water and remaking the public sector. Not all the lessons are positive, but each case provides insights into how private-to-public transitions take place, what could be changed or improved, and how these remunicipalisation experiments might be reproduced elsewhere. The fact that these transitions are taking place in very different locations and contexts is most encouraging of all. The success of remunicipalisation in the water sector also begs the question as to whether it can work in other sectors such as health care, electricity and waste management. In some respects it already has. Privatisation has failed to deliver in all of these areas, and

21 Remunicipalisation Works! citizens and managers have been pushing for a rethink of the commercialisation model. Hospitals and electricity services have been taken back into public hands, at all levels of government, and there are vibrant debates around the world about how various services can be returned to public ownership and control. 21 Each service sector offers its own managerial, technical, geographic and political challenges, but there is much to be learned from inter-sectoral debate and dialogue. Water may be the most widely targeted sector for remunicipalisation, with much to offer policy makers and activists in other areas, but so too can water managers and researchers learn from reforms in health care, electricity, waste management, education, etc. After all, a more holistic sense of integrated public service delivery requires dialogue across sectors. If we are to escape the silo mentality imposed on public services by the logic of commercialisation we must start by avoiding it in debates about remunicipalisation. Endnotes 1 Nellis, J. (1999) Time to rethink privatization in transition economies. Finance and Development 36(2). 2 Robbins, P. T. (2003) Transnational corporations and the discourse of water privatization. Journal of International Development 15: ; Swyngedouw, E. (2005) Dispossessing H 2 O: The contested terrain of water privatization. Capitalism Nature Socialism 16(1): 81-98; Bakker, K. (2010) Privatizing water: Governance failure and the world s urban water crisis. Ithica: Cornell University Press. 3 See, for example, the Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF) website at www. ppiaf.org. For a critical review see Bretton Woods Project (2010) World Bank assesses water strategy, faces barrage of criticism. 30 September. (accessed 5 August 2010). 4 For a review and up-to-date tracking of locations that have remunicipalised their water see www. remunicipalisation.org. 5 Lewis, R.A. (1952) Edwin Chadwick and the public health movement. London: Longmans Green, p Mill, J.S. (1872) The principles of political economy with some of their applications to social philosophy. Boston: Lee and Shepard, Book 1, Chapter IX, pp Marsh, P.T. (1994) Joseph Chamberlain: Entrepreneur in politics. New Haven: Yale University Press, p Briggs, A. (1965) Victorian cities. New York: Harper & Row, p Brennan, B., Hoedeman, O., Terhorst, P. and Kishimoto, S. (2005) Reclaiming public water: Achievements, struggles, visions from around the world. Amsterdam: TNI. 21

22 Chapter One 10 McDonald, D.A. and Ruiters, G.R. (Eds) (2012) Alternatives to privatization: Public options for essential services in the global South. New York: Routledge. 11 McDonald, D.A. and Ruiters, G.R. (2012) Weighing the options: Methodological considerations. In McDonald and Ruiters, op.cit., pp Hachfeld, D., Terhorst, P. and Hoedeman, O. (2009) Progressive public water management in Europe. Discussion Paper for Reclaiming Public Water. Amsterdam: TNI and CEO, p. 4. management%20in%20europe.pdf (accessed 2 May 2010). 13 See the Global Water Operators Partnership Alliance (GWOPA) website at although even this laudable initiative is influenced heavily by corporate participation. 14 Pollitt, C. and Bouckaert, G. (2011) Public management reform: A comparative analysis New public management, governance and the neo-weberian state. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Mc- Donald, D.A. and Ruiters, G.R. (2005) The age of commodity: Water privatization in Southern Africa. London: Earthscan. 15 For a fuller discussion see Transnational Institute (2006) Public services yearbook 2005/6: Beyond the market. The future of public services. Amsterdam: TNI. 16 van Rooyen, C. and Hall, D. (2007) Public is as private does: The confused case of Rand Water in South Africa. Occasional Paper no. 15. Cape Town: Municipal Services Project. 17 Burrows, R. and Loader, B. (1994) Towards a post-fordist welfare state? London: Routledge; Taylor-Gooby, P. (2000) Risk, trust and welfare. Houndsmill: Macmillan. 18 Brennan et al. (2005), op.cit. 19 There are dozens of local unions that are active on a municipal and national scale (e.g. the South African Municipal Workers Union and the Canadian Union of Public Employees) as well as the international coordination of Public Services International. 20 For a review of the role of labour in these debates see Wainwright, H. (2012) Transformative resistance: The role of labour and trade unions in alternatives to privatization. In McDonald and Ruiters, op.cit., pp For a survey of the literature and an interactive platform for discussion see servicesproject.org. 22

25 Une eau publique pour Paris: Symbolism and Success in the Heartland of Private Water On November 24, 2008, the City Council of Paris, France, decided not to renew the municipal water supply service contract with Veolia and Suez, two French companies that dominate the global water market for municipal water services. They had been operating the French capital s water supply system jointly since 1985, and Veolia had been in charge of billing for the entire system since Instead, municipal authorities would create Eau de Paris as a public company under its direct supervision to operate the system from 2010 onward. The two private companies losing a contract at home was a major symbolic defeat. It also represented a significant challenge for Mayor Bertrand Delanoë, who had pledged to take back control of the city s waters during his electoral campaign; the remunicipalisation of a system on this scale had never been experienced in France, and there were tasks that the city administration had never performed, such as billing and customer relations. While the private companies were legally obliged to transfer responsibilities for the operation of the system, some property boundaries were not clearly defined, as was the case with information technology systems. Further, bringing together workers from multiple backgrounds and status into one structure was no simple task. The companies threatened to fight back, and did. Countless difficulties were likely to keep arising but the mayor and his team were convinced they could run the system just as well as the private sector, and even better. A year and a half after the official transition, results are proving them right: the transition was managed on time and with impressive financial outcomes. As a case in point, Eau de Paris saved the city about 35 million with the shift to public ownership, leading to a reduction of water tariffs by 8% compared to The integration of fragmented parts of the water system gave birth to a more efficient, consistent and sustainable organisation, as well as revived water resource protection, research and innovation, and awareness-raising activities. Of course, results will need to be assessed over the long run, but the debut is promising. Two water giants and an old network under tension Paris is a densely populated city of 2.2 million inhabitants and the larger metropolitan area comprises approximately 10 million people. It is also home to the biggest water corporations in the world, Veolia Environnement and Suez Environnement. These companies were established (under different names) in the second half of the 19th century, under Emperor Napoleon III, but contrary to most other Western countries who municipalised their urban water systems at the beginning of the 20th century, these two firms managed to retain most of their contracts in France. Even as managers of vital natural monopolies, they were not affected by the country s three waves of nationalisations (1936, 1945 and 1981). This is an indication of the political power they could yield thanks to strong connections extending throughout the political system. 1 25

26 Chapter Two What is unique about Paris water is that it runs through two networks. The current drinking water and wastewater systems were created in the 1860s and completed in the early 20th century thanks to massive public investments into a state-of-the-art network of sewers and pipes. The latest phase in the development of the water network was part of an effort to stop the cholera and typhoid fever epidemics caused by the consumption of untreated water from the older network constructed under Napoleon I. Both networks are still in use today: the former supplies about 550,000 m 3 of drinking water a day to its inhabitants, half of which comes from groundwater and springs located in a large belt around the city and half from the rivers Seine and Marne, whereas the nondrinking water network is used for watering the parks and cleaning the streets and sewers. Another distinctive feature of the Paris water systems is that very few residents are aware of their water tariffs because there is limited individual billing, water typically being included in buildings collective charges. Nevertheless, decreasing consumption, 2 rising standards for wastewater treatment and additional taxes have translated into massive hikes in water charges over the past two decades. Rising pollution levels coming from industry and household effluents as well as industrial and chemically intensive agriculture (mostly cereals in this region) threaten the sustainability of the resource. Privatisation of supply, corporatisation of production Until 1984, Paris water systems were entirely run by the city with one notable exception: billing, which had been outsourced to Veolia (then called Compagnie Générale des Eaux) in 1860 and grew to become a very lucrative business that generated a 60% profit rate over the 30 first years. 3 The network s efficiency varied through the years however: it was in a dire state after World War II (44% losses), then improved until 1966 (22% losses), and degraded again until 1976 (32% losses). After the city elected its administration in 1977 in the first municipal election in over a century, the trend was reversed, with the network s efficiency improving again to reach an average of 20% losses between 1980 and The raw water network was hardly maintained throughout this post-war period In 1984, then-mayor Jacques Chirac signed a 25-year contract to subsidiaries of Veolia and Suez (its CEO at the time, Jérôme Monod, was a co-founder of Chirac s party) to manage Paris water supply and billing services. Maintaining the non-drinking water network was also part of the contract. Veolia was awarded the right bank of the Seine River and Suez, the left bank; this two-thirds to one-third customer sharing agreement interestingly reflected the companies respective market weights in France. They also established a special joint unit called Groupement d intérêt économique (GIE) to collect invoices based on Veolia s historic database of clients.

27 Une eau publique pour Paris: Symbolism and Success in the Heartland of Private Water In 1987, the water production and the control mechanism for the two private companies in charge of supply were also partially privatised with the creation of a mixed capital company, SAGEP (Société Anonyme de Gestion des Eaux de Paris). An outsourcing contract was signed between Paris and SAGEP, whose capital was owned 70% by the city, 28% by Veolia and Suez (each owning 14%), and 2% by the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDC), a public national investment bank. The private companies shares in SAGEP placed them in a clear conflict of interest since the latter was supposed to oversee the concession, a situation said in a 2003 city audit to create a paradoxical role, and partnership relationships that are not favourable to a controlling exercise. 6 A first step toward privatisation was also taken with the city s internal Water Quality Control Service becoming an independent public body, the Centre de Recherche et de Contrôle des Eaux de Paris (CRECEP). Under this new institutional setup, the network s leaks were reduced from 22% of the water serviced in 1985 to 17% in 2003, and after a harsh renegotiation of the contract between the city and the operators (see below), this figure was reduced dramatically to 3.5% in But water tariffs increased massively, by more than 265% between 1985 and 2009 for drinking water alone, with automatic tariff updates every three months; in contrast, inflation only rose by 70.5% over the same period. Such an increase led to strong suspicions of excessively high rates of profit for the two companies. For instance, water tariffs in Paris increased by more than 90% between 1991 and 1997 whereas they only increased by 51.5% in other French cities of more than 100,000 inhabitants over the same period. 7 The city also began to lose control over the system s technical knowledge: no patrimonial assessment of the supply network had been performed before the privatisation and authorities became entirely dependent on the private companies to obtain information on the network s state. The city s administration also had difficulty accessing reliable financial information: a 2001 audit by the city showed that the bill collecting entity, GIE, had never been controlled, and concluded that the satisfactory service does not justify such a high cost. 8 Another audit by the Region s Court of Auditors showed that GIE never declared to the city the extra revenue it obtained. Last but not least, another 2001 audit of Veolia s Paris subsidiary showed that it was a very profitable company and a generous cash-flow contributor to the group. 9 The official average annual profit made by the two companies was about 6-7%, but sources at Eau de Paris today argue that in reality it was closer to 15%, although this is impossible to prove given the absence of reliable data. In addition, many works undertaken by the companies were commissioned to their own subsidiaries, a classic way to extract additional profits through overpricing; but here again, the exact level of profits remains unknown except to the companies top 27

28 Chapter Two executives. As far as the maintenance of the raw water network was concerned, it was hardly done at all: the companies had no economic incentive to take this on, the contract hardly required any maintenance anyway, and the controller SAGEP was not unfavourable to the dismantlement of the network, hoping to sell extra drinking water that would compensate the consumption decrease. 10 Toward remunicipalisation In 2001, newly elected Paris Socialist Mayor Bertrand Delanoë published a communiqué on the need to take control of the city s water services. 11 Concrete steps were quickly taken by the city to regain control of certain in-house competencies and capacities. For instance, a team was established to follow up and control water infrastructure construction projects, a consultative commission was created to involve users in water policy, and a separate water section in the city s budget was re-established : Initial negotiations The new team heading the city soon realised that its capacity to control the service provided by the private companies was severely limited, and that financial opacity was absolute, in the words of Anne Le Strat, then newly elected Green party politician appointed CEO of SAGEP. Within the city s administration, Le Strat quickly became renowned for her strong commitment to water remunicipalisation in Paris. For her part, Myriam Constantin, a Socialist, became Vice Mayor for Water and Sanitation. She took a less radical stance, stating that what matters is that public authorities can develop genuine control over the services executed in their name, 12 in line with her party s stance on the issue (many privatised drinking water systems in France are run by Socialist and even Communist municipal administrations). 28 Negotiations to review the contract started almost immediately between the city and the private companies. They involved only a handful of city managers and were kept secret from the public and from most elected officials. Only their outcome was made public in 2003: the companies agreed to lower their declared average profitability rate from 6-7% to about 4%, to invest 153 million by 2009 to accelerate the network s renewal, and to replace lead joints to comply with EU standards. But the water tariffs were not lowered, and the excessive amounts provisioned by the companies for construction works were only partially taken back. 13 The 2003 appendices to the contract signed with the companies cancelled the 1997 appendix, but the report explaining the details of the deal was partially censored by the municipality when published. Furthermore, 80% of the investments were financed by no-interest public loans, a good deal for the companies who had all these works executed (and likely overpriced) by their own subsidiaries.

29 Une eau publique pour Paris: Symbolism and Success in the Heartland of Private Water Why such a favourable deal, and such secrecy, after years of public criticism of these two companies by Paris left-wing politicians? The Socialists were constrained by the previous agreements made between the companies and former mayors, notably the 1997 contract that guaranteed a minimum profit rate to the operators to compensate for the decrease in volumes sold. They were also trapped by a loophole in the contract that enabled Veolia and Suez to wait between six and 10 months before transferring the money they collected to SAGEP, thereby generating substantial extra profits in interest earned over the period. In a nutshell, the reason Paris Socialists were so discreet about the renegotiation was that the companies had not broken any provisions of their contracts, and admission of excessive charges would have required the city to reimburse Parisians! One must also take into account the water companies numerous channels of influence within the city administration and among politicians: for instance, the vice-mayor at the time, Socialist Anne Hidalgo, had worked for Veolia between 1995 and : Building capacity The period had been a reality check for Paris new political leadership, revealing the narrow margins for manoeuvre associated with a privatisation contract with such powerful companies. To strengthen their position, politicians launched a series of legal, technical and financial audits as well as extensive consultations with Eau de Paris personnel to assess the potential consequences of cancelling the contract. The investigation concluded it was best to wait until the end of the contract in December 2009 for legal and technical reasons. Another finding made clear that issuing another PPP contract would be much easier to handle for the city s administration. As François Leblanc, director at SAGEP during the transition, put it, the private to public transition had never been experienced at this scale I think it was easier, technically and legally, to re-issue a new tender than to remunicipalise It is not only the network management, it s everything; for instance, the assets are enormous, you have numerous buildings, plots of land, etcetera, that need to have their status changed; you have changes of taxation regimes... And all this work you have to do on top of all the rest. 14 Nevertheless, these challenges did not deter the municipal team from staying the course with their agenda. The team made its first major move to remunicipalise in March 2007 by ousting Veolia and Suez from SAGEP through a city council vote that forced the companies to sell their shares at a good profit 15 to the French national investment bank CDC (Veolia s biggest shareholder at the time). GIE, the opaque financial structure set up by the companies to collect their invoices, was dissolved and the task of monitoring the two private companies was transferred back from SAGEP to the city administration. The private companies were worried but anticipated that they could still renew their contracts in

30 Chapter Two The real game changer event occurred on November 5, 2007: Delanoë, campaigning for his second term as Paris mayor, promised that water supply and billing, a 180 million annual contract at the time, would be publicly managed again if he were re-elected. According to most interviewees for this research, this decision was taken in a very small circle, and perhaps even on a personal basis since it took some of his closest colleagues by surprise when it was announced. Reasons behind this decision are multiple. One argument is financial and technical: the numerous audits and studies commissioned by the city and SAGEP indicated that substantial savings could be achieved by taking the service back in-house, and that a unified institutional setup made more sense than the ongoing fragmentation of responsibilities. This became the city s main official argument: public water management can be more efficient, and it enables the city to manage water as a common good rather than being treated as a private commodity. But one must also point out that Delanoë was, at the time, tempted to play a bigger role in national politics, and ran for the position of first secretary of the Socialist Party later in 2008 which he eventually lost. His decision to remunicipalise water could therefore be interpreted as a political signal sent to the party s left wing to change his image as too business-friendly. Veolia and Suez argue that it was a political decision, rather than one made on financial or technical grounds. In any event, Delanoë was re-elected mayor of Paris very comfortably on March 16, 2008 with 57.7% of votes for his coalition : Decision time In July, 2008, the city took another step toward remunicipalisation by buying CDC s 30% share in SAGEP, which then became a fully municipal company. But an even more critical decision came on November 24-25, 2008, when the Paris City Council voted for the entire water system, from resource protection to end user, to be operated by one unified public entity beginning January 1, This served as the first official announcement of the remunicipalisation and initiated a complex legal process that had taken months to design and plan: SAGEP was liquidated before the end of its contract but not dissolved thanks to a universal assets donation that enabled the creation of the public company Eau de Paris on January 1, 2009, before the contract with Veolia and Suez ended. 30 The private operators who thought the mayor s pledge was nothing more than an electoral promise were furious, and complained that his decision would ruin their public image and undermine their global commercial position. They quickly toned down their criticism, however, taking the stance that this was a purely political and ideological move that had nothing to do with their performance. Meanwhile, two members of the rightwing opposition UMP city councillors Jérôme Dubus and Jean-François Legaret challenged the municipal decision in court in January They claimed that this move

31 Une eau publique pour Paris: Symbolism and Success in the Heartland of Private Water was in breach of European treaties, which required all public authorities to organise a tender each time they wanted to entrust the execution of an economic activity to an operator engaged in the market. The court dismissed their accusation, ruling in May 2010 that under EU regulations a municipality had the right to manage any service to its population in-house. 16 There was thus no legal obstacle to the transfer, and the final decision to launch Eau de Paris, formally voted by the City Council in November 2009, was confirmed. From fragmentation to unity As soon as the official remunicipalisation decision was taken, a task force was created to organise the transition. It was an enormous challenge given the short 18 months left before the actual transfer, with major bottlenecks to overcome. IT systems: Blurred property boundaries Generally speaking, the private operators cooperated throughout the transition, but some aspects proved more difficult to deal with such as the transfer of the customer databases and information systems. In fact, customer relations (metering, billing, follow-up and interventions management) remain outsourced to the private operators until 2012 to ease the transition. Customers and technical data was transferred, as it was a legal requirement, but the transfer of the IT tools developed by the private companies to process and articulate the various sets of data has proven to be a much more sensitive issue. Technical and geographical information systems were rather simple to integrate with the former SAGEP system, but transferring the IT tools making the strategic link with the commercial systems was much more difficult because such tools are important factors for these companies competitiveness. To add to the complexity, the existing IT systems were not compatible: the two companies have different histories, are more or less centralised, and the systems are proprietary. We don t manage to speak to the relevant specialist, it s just as simple as that, 17 complains a current manager at Eau de Paris in charge of the dossier. As a consequence, one of the first steps of remunicipalisation was to identify what, within these centralised systems, belonged to the Paris contract. The companies apparently only began to collaborate when they were sure that they would get a service contract for this work, and that the allocation of tasks and liabilities was clearly laid out. Trust was a major issue in these tense negotiations, each party imagining worst case scenarios. In the end, the collaboration was fruitful and Eau de Paris developed its own information system, based on one put in place by the French city of Grenoble when it remunicipalised its water services in The unified information system was launched in October 31

32 Chapter Two Eau de Paris also recruited external know-how in order to create a commercial department that now employs managers coming from electricity and telecom companies notably, bringing with them new methods and approaches. Workers: From five organisations to one One of the most delicate parts of the transition concerned workers: 642 workers from Eau de Paris, 228 workers from Veolia and Suez, 55 workers from CRECEP, and 14 workers from the city administration were to be brought together in the same company, involving 15 different unions in a six-month negotiation over wages, working conditions and benefits. The negotiations were completed just in time and produced a partial agreement signed in December All workers integrating Eau de Paris were paid according to a harmonised salary scale in January However, this achievement conceals some ongoing difficulties. One problem was with the type of workers who were transferred from the private operators: all workers coming from the private sector were given the choice to stay with the company or go to Eau de Paris, and both private operators managed to keep the overwhelming majority of their higher ranking staff: no managers were transferred from Suez, and very few from Veolia. Eau de Paris tried to recruit a few managers from the private companies, but its incentives seemed no match for the private companies and it had to recruit external personnel for management positions, a lengthy and sensitive process. In general, the re-organisation of the whole structure was very demanding and created a host of tensions in the organisation, since many workers had to substantially change their assignments. A second difficulty was more pernicious: the two unions coming from Suez and Veolia and the one from Eau de Paris did not merge, despite belonging to the same union federation (CGT), and Veolia employees could not preserve all their previous benefits but are still fighting to access them. 18 This situation gave rise to a legal battle between the two unions, each accusing the other of betraying workers either by being too close to Eau de Paris directors 19 or by acting on behalf of Veolia and Suez 20 to undermine remunicipalisation. This in-fighting has continued, with the added tension of some outsourcing of service contracts having ended in July 2011 and some unions threatening to sue Eau de Paris for not automatically hiring workers from these outsourced firms. Financial management 32 The biggest problems, however, were experienced with the financial system, particularly the transition from private to public accounting and buying procedures. As a public company, Eau de Paris requires all procurements above a certain price threshold to be decided by a commission, whose recommendations are then decided by the board. As a result,

33 Une eau publique pour Paris: Symbolism and Success in the Heartland of Private Water delays have occurred in some important areas and administrative processes have generally grown more burdensome. Furthermore, public entities in France are legally required to establish a budget based on particular accounting methods. Finally, all payments are done by one sole public official, an accountancy agent (agent comptable) detached to Eau de Paris from the Ministry of Finances but who remains legally separate from the public operator and who is personally responsible for everything he signs. Specific IT tools also had to be acquired to manage the thousands of invoices, creating another hurdle because the market for accounting software dedicated to managing public industrial structures in France is almost non-existent after three decades of privatisations. All this translated into severe, sometimes dramatic payment delays to suppliers. The situation is now improving, with several consultants hired to clean the books by the end of 2011, and with payment delays having been brought back to an above-average days. The buying and procurement procedures are clearly heavier in the new institutional setting as compared to what existed before, but expense control has greatly improved. Ideological and structural obstacles within the city administration One last difficulty is that some departments within the city administration, particularly the water and finance departments, were opposed to the remunicipalisation and thought that the mayor s pledge was nothing more than a political gesture that would not materialise. The consequence was that the transition was neither anticipated nor prepared for by these departments. Another explanation for this situation is that many public officials in management positions seem to prefer outsourcing public services to the private sector because it enables them to avoid managing complex infrastructures and numerous personnel. It can be simpler to organise a tender and, if necessary, to hire a consultant to solve the legal difficulties and/or monitor performance. Achievements, challenges and perspectives for Paris waters Despite important challenges, Eau de Paris began operating Paris water systems on January 1, 2010, and there was no apparent difference in service to end users. But of course lots had changed, including the signing of a performance contract 21 between the city and Eau de Paris, defining the new public company s objectives, putting it under closer scrutiny than any local water provider in the past in an effort to demonstrate that the public sector can be operated in a transparent and efficient manner. The contract was reviewed and approved by the municipality with indicators that enable the City Council to monitor performance and to communicate to workers and the wider public what the political objectives of the new water systems are, including permanent access to the best possible 33

34 Chapter Two water at a fair price, better transparency of water management with a clearer allocation of responsibilities, increased participation of users in the systems management and strong social and environmental responsibility ambitions. Eau de Paris is now a régie à personnalité morale et à autonomie financière, a semiautonomous body with a separate budget and legal status. It is publicly owned and citycontrolled. All top management appointments are decided by the City Council. The board is the highest body in the organisation and includes a president (currently Anne Le Strat, re-elected in 2008 and now also vice-mayor for water, sanitation and canals), 10 members of the City Council, two staff representatives and five qualified persons including two water and sanitation experts, one environmental NGO, one consumer organisation and one member from Observatoire Municipal de l Eau (City Water Observatory). With Paris managing its water systems in-house, expectations were high at home and abroad and the move was monitored attentively by many in the water sector. After only 18 months of public operation (at the time of writing) it is still too early to offer a definitive assessment, but a number of key achievements and lessons can be highlighted, as outlined below. Financial savings above expectations 34 An outstanding achievement, beyond the sheer fact of having managed such a challenging transition in such a short time, are the economic results of the remunicipalisation. Operating costs are below expectations and below those of the private companies, while transition costs were lower than planned. The transition itself cost Eau de Paris roughly 15% of its turnover in its first year, but since financial surpluses reached 68 million (a figure that must be balanced out by the fact that some capital investments were postponed). Overall Eau de Paris saved some 35 million on its previous contract costs with Suez and Veolia thanks to remunicipalisation. These savings come from the internalisation of profits previously extracted by the private companies to pay shareholder dividends, from the systematic organisation of competitive tenders for works that were previously entrusted to the companies subsidiaries, and from a more beneficial tax regime for in-house rather than private companies. These savings are expected to last, and enabled Delanoë and Le Strat to announce on January 5, 2011, an 8% decrease in Paris drinking water tariffs (from /m 3 to /m 3 ), a symbolic victory that infuriated many in the private water industry who have been pushing for hikes in water tariffs for years. The city promised Parisians that the water tariff would not increase above inflation until 2015 (year of the next municipal election) despite decreasing revenues associated with diminishing consumption volumes of residents. 22

35 Une eau publique pour Paris: Symbolism and Success in the Heartland of Private Water Better planning for the long term Another achievement is the creation of synergies by merging the three previous operators into one for the same service area, enabling scale savings, a clearer institutional structure with cross-checks between water production and supply departments and a centralised overview of the cycle. In terms of water quality there is no detectable difference with the private sector era, but this new institutional architecture enables more comprehensive quality control. The researchers of the former public laboratory of the city (CRECEP), which was closed by a national government decision to open the market of water quality testing to competition, were partly re-hired in Eau de Paris new internal laboratory. Importantly, a public water research centre called Aqua Futura has been launched with funding from the city, the region, and partnerships with neighbouring universities, and aims to create a centre of excellence for public water, independent of the large groups that dominate water research in France. One must also note Eau de Paris renewed interest in protecting water resources and tackling water pollution challenges over the long term, such as establishing partnerships with farmers around water catchment areas to help them switch to organic agriculture or at least to practice agricultural methods requiring fewer chemicals (the groundwater that supplies 50% of Paris water did not need treatment until the 1990s). The program is new and will take several years to deliver, but several farmers have already begun the transition toward more environment-friendly farming with the support of Eau de Paris. Network performance remains strong for drinking water (due in part to the high level of maintenance by the private companies in the last few years of their contract, a result of the 2003 contract renegotiation) but the network s age is a worrying factor. There is a major difference between maintaining a network, which the private companies did, and renewing it, which was not done according to Eau de Paris managers. Big investments are needed and have already been planned, but the question remains: How long can this old an infrastructure last? Some engineering knowledge has been lost in the transition from private to public ownership and needs to be re-built. A total assessment of infrastructure health, which had never been done, is now being undertaken by the city. The fate of the network transporting raw water is more uncertain. Abandoned for decades, it requires major investments to be rehabilitated, but its dismantling would be extremely costly. The city has now launched a public debate to determine what infrastructure needs should be given priority. Either way, the cost of this prolonged inaction will be high. 35

36 Chapter Two Reaching out: Transparency, solidarity, participation Eau de Paris is investing in its general communication and in new interactive tools to enable users to better monitor their own consumption of water, the quality of water in their street and neighbourhood, and the planned works that might disrupt traffic. This transparency effort has been recognised by the main French consumers association, UFC Que Choisir. 23 Eau de Paris new website features numerous resources on the history of the service, its environmental impacts, and its social and solidarity programs. Eau de Paris has also launched campaigns to promote tap water against bottled water, to give advice on water savings and, more generally, to raise awareness about water challenges in Paris and worldwide. The new public water company is also engaged in solidarity actions: it increased its contribution to the city s housing solidarity fund (from 175,000 to 500,000), paid a water solidarity allocation to 44,000 poor households in the city, commissioned a report on progressive billing, 24 launched a water saving campaign, and has systematically avoided cutting off water supply in squats. But solidarity is not restricted to local water users, with Eau de Paris engaged in defending and promoting public water management at the European and international levels. The public provider co-founded Aqua Publica Europea, a European federation of public water operators that represents and promotes public water management at the EU level, as well as defends public operators against water corporate lobbying activities. It supports NGOs of African migrants willing to develop water supply and sanitation in their home countries, and has established a partnership with the Moroccan Office National de l Eau Potable (ONEP) to develop water supply in Mauritania. It also financially supports other public operators in developing countries, such as Phnom Penh, 25 one of the most efficient public operators in South-East Asia, 26 where Eau de Paris funds social connections. 36 In terms of user participation in the new public system, outcomes have been mixed. The push to remunicipalise was not driven by civil society, but city politicians have attempted to broaden the system s governance and involve users in decision-making processes. The City Water Observatory a civil society water assembly created in 2006 to bring together consumers (mostly property agents), environmental NGOs, institutional players, and water experts that now meet six times a year plays a consultative role at the moment, although Eau de Paris has been considering granting it a voting right on the board. Eau de Paris has also commissioned a study on water user participation in the hope of identifying inspirational practices, but evidence suggests that there is little demand for this in Paris at the moment. According to Eau de Paris communications department, individual users are interested in a municipal water management topic when the information is

37 Une eau publique pour Paris: Symbolism and Success in the Heartland of Private Water brought to their attention but they rarely see their water invoice because of Paris collective billing system and as a result awareness of local water issues has remained low, despite the dramatic change in ownership and operation. On a related note, many Eau de Paris employees seem unconvinced about the remunicipalisation idea: in addition to union in-fighting, the decision to lower water tariffs generated unease among some staff that fear that revenue reduction might impact their working conditions or salaries. The development of a lively public service culture within the organisation, after all the difficulties created by the transition, will of course take time but remains a crucial task for the sustainability of the organisation. Conclusion A striking fact about the remunicipalisation of Paris waters is that it has been a highly political move undertaken with little public pressure or participation. Some civil society groups pushed for the system to be taken in-house, but they never managed to attract media attention, and in any case their lobbying power was no match for Veolia s and Suez s. Although the Greens and the Communists pushed for remunicipalisation from an early stage, the Socialist Party remained divided on the issue. What probably made the difference in convincing Mayor Delanoë were the numerous and detailed audits proving the potential for financial savings, more than arguments about managing water as a public good. The transition was difficult, particularly on the financial management side and in terms of personnel. Certain competences had to be re-built and in-depth knowledge of the infrastructure will take time to regain. The private operators did not undermine the transition, but neither did they provide help beyond their legal duties, at times withholding information on commercial grounds. The fact that some sections of the city administration were reluctant to remunicipalise did not help either. There were also weaknesses in the reform process: it was very top-down, linked to a handful of committed and competent individuals, and it created tensions in the organisation. But despite these challenges, the transition was managed on time and with very impressive financial outcomes. The integration of the fragmented parts of the drinking system gave birth to a more efficient, consistent and longer-term planning organisation, as well as renewed activity of the company into water resource protection, research, innovation, and awareness-raising. In general, the major bottlenecks experienced during the transition phase were tackled efficiently, with the exception of the bitter fight between unions. Overall, the preliminary assessment is promising, with Paris water systems moving from opaque, fragmented and short-term management to a more integrated, transparent, longer-term and progressive approach. 37

38 Chapter Two Regardless of one s take on the outcomes, this enormous institutional reorganisation has created the institutional equivalent of a tsunami in a water sector dominated by privatisation ideology for the past three decades. The simplistic idea that the private sector is naturally better equipped to manage urban water systems was proven wrong in Paris, where a private duopoly by powerful companies was operating at the expense of the residents of the city. But this example has also shown that what has been done by politics can be undone by politics. There is no safeguard against the re-privatisation of Eau de Paris in the future. However, achieving the best performance possible and involving as many Parisians as possible in this success are ways for the city to work against a possible reversal. Political change brought about mostly by reasons of financial efficiency will then lead to a deeper set of political reasons to keep and broaden the public character of the city s waters. 38 Endnotes 1 The French reform of political party funding in the 1990s forced publication of all party accounts, which triggered numerous corruption scandals. It showed that water companies had been for years among the biggest contributors to governmental and opposition parties alike. See for instance Guinel, J. (1994) De grandes entreprises en cause: l eau éclabousse la classe politique française. L économiste 157 (December). 2 Barraqué, B. and Nercessian, A. (2008) Mieux comprendre comment évolue la consommation d eau à Paris. Paris: Agence de l Eau Seine-Normandie, Mairie de Paris. 3 Stefanovitch, Y. (2005) L empire de l eau. Paris: Ramsay, p Barraqué and Nercessian (2008), op. cit. 5 Guillerme, A. (2010) Paris perd ses eaux. Le Monde, 5 April. 6 Mairie de Paris, Inspection Générale (2003) Le contrôle par la Ville de Paris de sa filière eau (production-distribution). IG (June). Paris: Mairie de Paris, p Direction générale de la concurrence, de la consommation et de la répression des fraudes (DGC- CRF) (1999) Enquête sur le prix de l eau 1991/1997, quoted in Main, P. (1999) L économie de l eau : Quelle tuyauterie à la française? H2O magazine (April). quotidien-le-prix-de-l-eau/l-evolution-du-prix-de-l-eau-de-1991-a-1997.htm (accessed 13 January 2012). 8 Ville de Paris (2003) Gestion du service commercial des Eaux de Paris. Fascicule 0: Synthèse et conclusions, October. Paris : Ville de Paris, p Author translation of text quoted in Laimé, M. (2007) Paris va éjecter Veolia et Suez de la SEM Eau de Paris. Les eaux glacées du calcul égoïste, 22 March. (accessed 12 December 2011). 10 Mairie de Paris, Inspection Générale (2003), op.cit., pp

41 From Fiasco to DAWASCO: Remunicipalising Water Systems in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Dar es Salaam s water and sewerage systems were in a terrible state when the government of Tanzania privatised them in 2003, signing a contract with City Water Services (CWS) a joint-venture of Biwater (UK) and Gauff (Germany). This private consortium was later joined by a Tanzanian private firm, Superdoll. But private management did nothing to improve the situation, with the World Bank describing the private operator s performance as worse than its predecessor s. In 2005, a new public operator took over: Dar es Salaam Water and Sewerage Corporation (DAWASCO). Since that time DAWASO has managed to extend coverage and improve critical aspects of water service delivery in Dar es Salaam, proving that public water services can be managed well by the state, and can outperform the private sector in many ways. Nevertheless, overall results are mixed, as DAWASCO has also begun to operate increasingly like a private company, focusing on full cost recovery and failing to meet its obligations in the lowest income areas of the city. To be fair, the daunting challenges faced by DAWASCO since remunicipalisation are part of the problem: derelict infrastructure, unreliable customer data, degraded water resources, and strict but not necessarily relevant conditionalities imposed by international donors to access investment funds. Understanding these challenges requires a review of the general legacies of post-colonial Tanzania, as well as the impacts of the failed privatisation. It also requires an examination of the ideological assumptions that continue to inform policy and practice in Tanzania as a whole. Historical background Following its 1963 independence from Great Britain, and its 1964 partial merger with Zanzibar, Tanganyika became Tanzania, ruled by charismatic figure Julius Nyerere and his Revolutionary Party (Chama cha Mapinduzi, CCM). The first 25 years of independence were marked by an original socialist-inspired political regime that sought ideological independence from both capitalism and Soviet-style Marxism through African socialism (Ujamaa), which was inspired by egalitarianism, self-reliance and cooperative agriculture. Most banks and industries were nationalised, literacy rates and access to health care and water supply were considerably improved, the state was successful at preventing ethnic clashes, and party leaders were legally kept from accumulating wealth and power. 1 The government, however, faced harsh difficulties. The collectivisation of agriculture was a disaster: production plummeted causing heavy reliance on food imports, and millions of resettled farmers went back to subsistence farming. The economic crisis of the late 1970s combined with the 1979 military intervention to oust Uganda s Idi Amin Dada had a severe impact on the national economy: by the early 1980s, industry was functioning at only 30% of its productive capacity. 2 The one-party system was also showing signs of exhaustion, with corruption spreading. 3 Nyerere stepped down voluntarily in 41

42 Chapter Three 1985, leaving Tanzania among the poorest and most aid-dependent African countries. 4 Many Tanzanians still remember this mixed experience with centrally planned economies and large state bureaucracies. Since then, many social gains made in the 1970s such as literacy, public health care and water supply have been undermined. 5 The country had to comply with tough international financial institutions lending conditions leading to the privatisation of most of its parastatal companies 6 to access debt relief. We will see that this imposition played a key role in our case. Dar es Salaam is the largest city in Tanzania, as well as its main industrial and commercial centre. The city has an official population of 2.5 million, projected to reach 3.5 million by 2015, 7 but unofficial estimates put the figures at 3 million in 1999 and a current population of up to 5 million, with a 7-10% yearly increase. 8 The city has a tropical climate with hot and humid weather most of the year, heavy rains falling between March and early May and between October and December to a lesser extent. This important rainfall seasonality is becoming more extreme with climate change and is reflected in more extreme river discharge variations, an important fact given that the city gets more than 90% of its water from rivers. The water supplying Dar es Salaam comes from two main sources: the upper and lower plants on the Ruvu river (about 60 km north-west of the city) developed in 1959 and 1976; and an older small surface scheme in the southern part of the city completed under colonial rule in About 35 boreholes scattered throughout the city also supply the network, a legacy of those drilled in emergency during the severe droughts of and The piped network was first developed in the city centre in the 1920s and 1930s, significant additions were made in the 1950s and the last major expansion occurred throughout the 1970s when the system s performance was at its best (most connected households were getting 24-hour supply at that time). 42 After independence, water supply in the city was directly managed by the Ministry of Water and Power. In 1977, the department in charge was turned into a parastatal company, the National Urban Water Authority (NUWA). Until 1991, those whose property was directly connected to the system had to pay for water while the water delivered at kiosks was free. A 1997 reform transformed NUWA into the Dar es Salaam Water and Sewerage Authority (DAWASA), a semi-independent entity aiming at financial autonomy, and combining for the first time both water supply and sanitation. But the last significant investments in the system dated back to the 1970s and had not been followed by proper maintenance, upgrades or expansions to cope with the city s rapidly increasing population. Thus, the system was in a terrible state by the early 1990s, with high levels of disrepair, unaccounted for water, major financial losses, demotivated workers and very low coverage.

43 From Fiasco to DAWASCO: Remunicipalising Water Systems in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania This long-standing negligence also means that data related to water production, transfer, distribution and use in the city must be dealt with cautiously: metering has neither been consistent over time nor reliable, and the figures are politically sensitive, being crucial performance indicators for the utility managers and having played a pivotal role in the privatisation conflict. Data presented here must therefore be understood as an indication of scales and trends and not necessarily as an exact reflection of the state of water services in the city. The failure of privatisation In August 2003, the World Bank spearheaded a US$164.6 million fund to privatise Dar es Salaam s water services, under the banner of the Dar es Salaam Water Supply and Sanitation Project (DWSSP). 9 This initiative was welcomed with relief by local authorities as well as the media, as it signalled the launch of a much-awaited and badly-needed infrastructure investment program. 10 Assigning a lease contract to a private operator was a strict condition on the funding, and despite some progressive wording little consideration was given to public consultation, pro-poor focus or political debate. 11 The contract was kept secret even from Parliament. The experience did not last long: 21 months into the private concession, the government of Tanzania terminated the contract with the private water operator and police even briefly arrested its executives, who were soon expelled from the country. In retrospect, the lead-up to the privatisation lasted much longer than the experiment itself. Already in 1997, the government of Tanzania consulted international private water companies about a concession contract but could not reach an agreement as none of the companies were willing to risk injecting money into a system that had been neglected for 20 years. There was also disagreement on the best privatisation option. In the end, the World Bank insisted on redesigning a tender looking at a more limited investment from the private sector, and the government responded by proposing a 10-year operating lease contract in which a private company would take over responsibility for billing, tariff collection, general management and routine maintenance. In that scheme, DAWASA would retain ownership of the assets, rehabilitate and expand the network and monitor the performance of the operator. A first bid attracted proposals from three companies (Vivendi [now Veolia], Saur and Biwater) but was cancelled given the companies proposed conditions. A revised bidding process ensued, but the two French companies, Vivendi and Saur, withdrew their bids before the financial application stage, apparently convinced their UK competitor would be chosen whatever they proposed. When CWS won the contract, it was a newly created joint venture between Biwater and Gauff Tanzania. They later formed a consortium with Superdoll Trailer Manufacture 43

44 Chapter Three Company Ltd (STM), a Tanzanian investor with a minority shareholding of 49%. The consortium s risks were limited by a string of sweetener loans and construction contracts from the donors in order to get them to accept below full cost recovery water tariffs in the first five years of the lease (although STM did not benefit from these contracts). The initial concept of the lease contract was to put the capital risk on DAWASA and the operational risk on CWS, but these boundaries were blurred by the addition of construction contracts worth US$40 million that were safer sources of profit for the European companies. As soon as operations began problems accrued, to the point that CWS stopped paying its monthly lease fee to DAWASA in January 2004, only five months after the contract started. CWS injected only half the capital it should have (US$8.5 million), and the company s revenue dropped by a third between August 2003 and March Billing efficiency collapsed, new customers sometimes did not enter the billing system, and existing customers seemed to benefit from increased leeway in making payments directly to the company s revenue collectors. Technical performance was no better, with large delays in implementing first-time connections and getting started on the construction contracts. On top of all this, a 2006 report by the Ministry of Water 12 found that no financial report had been provided by CWS to DAWASA during the contract period. Several reports and interviews with employees, union representatives and senior managers point to three main explanations for the failure of CWS. First, there was a surprising ignorance of the terms of the lease contract among CWS top executives who seemed to assume key components of the contract were still negotiable. On the crucial issue of tariffs, for instance, CWS was refused two tariff increases because of its poor technical performance. Second, employees and technicians were poorly trained and equipped, badly remunerated and inadequately supervised, 13 a situation that translated into widespread corruption and revenue collection embezzlement by employees. In its one and only substantial organisational reform, CWS attempted to retrench almost 40% of the workforce when it decided to sub-contract parts of the lease contract, despite promises made to the unions not to downsize. However, the contract was terminated before CWS could proceed. 44 Third, CWS s main objective was to improve revenue collection through a better billing system and customer database. It introduced new software to do so, but its implementation was very slow and was never completed. It also prioritised the metering of the network but did not consider that most meters spin on both air and water, a serious problem in a network characterised by rationing and low pressure. Many new metered customers were billed for large quantities of air passing in the pipes.

45 From Fiasco to DAWASCO: Remunicipalising Water Systems in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Technical performance improvements were also held back by external factors such as poor data reliability (CWS believed DAWASA had inflated connection and supply figures), unresolved legal doubts on interpretation of the lease contract, and considerable delays in other aspects of DWSSP s implementation. The non-payment of the lease fee as well as withholding of promised capital by CWS increased tension in its relationship with DAWASA, undermining potential collaborative work. The situation worsened among shareholders as well because Biwater and Gauff were reaping the biggest procurement contracts while the local investor, STM, barely had a say in the consortium s decision making. It got to the point that STM tried to sell its shares and refused to provide the second half of its required capital investment, prompting other shareholders to do the same and deepening CWS s financial crisis. Lastly, but importantly, CWS was operating even though the independent regulator EWURA was not yet in place. This meant that regulation and performance monitoring were done by DAWASA and the Ministry of Water even though they were party to the contract. Once the government of Tanzania secured the DWSSP loan, it had few incentives to help CWS beyond its contractual obligations although it did so in the early phase by giving CWS extra time to make payments. The conflict between DAWASA and CWS escalated. An independent facilitator was appointed, immediately drawing up a list of key issues to be addressed, but the government announced the termination of the lease contract before the conciliation procedure was finalised. It seems it had gathered sufficient proof of CWS s failure to win ensuing litigations and make sure that funders would not stop paying. This is why some argue that the failure of CWS was politically convenient for the government, who could then put the general blame on the company for the city s water problems and show action to remedy the CWS crisis a few months before the presidential elections. 14 Court cases between the government of Tanzania and Biwater-Gauff at the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) and at the World Bank s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) were not won by the company. Although the government of Tanzania was deemed guilty of illegally terminating the contract, it was not forced to offer any financial compensation. The UN- CITRAL tribunal analysed the situation differently and sentenced CWS to a 3 million fine, 15 which was never paid because CWS had gone bankrupt, leaving the government furious at what it now describes as a malicious deal. Back to public Immediately following the termination of the contract with CWS in 2005, the government of Tanzania took control of the entire company structure assets and employees 45

46 Chapter Three and appointed a senior Ministry of Water and Irrigation official as CEO of the company renamed Dar es Salaam Water and Sewerage Corporation (DAWASCO). DAWASCO is a public parastatal company owned and financed by the Tanzanian state with a board appointed by the ministry. At creation, its most pressing tasks were to increase the systems coverage, reliability and revenue. Improving coverage and access Perhaps the most immediate challenge for DAWASCO was addressing the extremely high level of leaks and unaccounted for water in the systems, estimated to be as high as 76% of the water leaving the treatment plants. 16 The situation has improved since DA- WASCO came into being, bringing the leaks rate down to roughly 56.5% in 2009, but this figure is still unacceptably high and recent donor-funded works on leakage reduction are hoped to make a more significant difference. 17 Extending coverage is also a priority. Current estimates show that between 62% and 68% of city dwellers use tap water but only 8% have piped water in their homes. This figure nevertheless represents a 12.7% increase in connections between 2006 and 2009, with coverage continuing to increase according to interviews with DAWASCO officials. Connected users received an average eight hours of service a day in 2008, a figure that represents a slight improvement from 2006, but this has not progressed since. 18 Overall, however, DAWASCO has managed to improve coverage and is better positioned to meet rising demand for water in a growing city. DAWASCO also reports steady advances in metering, from 45% of connected users in 2006 to 67% in For billed customers, official water tariffs were increased in 30% in July 2006 to reach US$0.46/m 3 and remained unchanged until August 2009 when they were raised again to US$0.56/m 3 (a point we will return to). In terms of responsiveness to users, DAWASCO has made substantial efforts to improve its performance, open communication channels and monitor efficiency in handling complaints. 46 Daily water production capacity is roughly 273,000 m 3, in addition to an average of 5,800 m 3 raw water from boreholes. This is still far below total water demand, which was evaluated at 450,000 m 3 a day in Moreover, production figures are a theoretical maxima: the volumes of water reaching the city s distribution network are in fact much lower, with some 43% of the water leaking or being illegally diverted (mainly for agriculture) along the transmission mains between the Ruvu River and the city reservoirs. 19 One must also account for the leaks within the city s distribution system, as noted above. All this means that the actual volume of water reaching city users is closer to 100,000 m 3 a day. As a consequence, storage capacity is hardly used and several neighbourhoods have scarce supply, or none.

47 From Fiasco to DAWASCO: Remunicipalising Water Systems in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania The average income in the poorest areas of the city is roughly US$30 a month, making the official cost of water expensive but not unaffordable for most households in the city. But given the systems poor reliability and limited coverage, Dar es Salaam inhabitants must use other sources to complement or replace the conventional network, which is less convenient and more expensive, as follows: Thirty-eight per cent of households buy water from re-sellers who get water through their domestic connection and sell it to their neighbours, often at inflated prices. Some households use illegal connections or share private connections, creating further inefficiencies and reliability problems in the network. 20 Kiosks that are in part supplied by the network but are most often privately managed charge higher tariffs than the official EWURA rates. 21 Private boreholes service many affluent neighbourhoods. Private tankers serve to buffer erratic supply. Many households use bottled water. This de facto privatisation of substantial parts of the network generates high levels of inequality, with prices varying depending on the supply chain s length. Analysis suggests that the poorest city dwellers spend the largest share of their revenue and make the greatest physical effort to get water. 22 Economic inequality goes hand in hand with the spatial inequality inherited from the city s past: the piped network was first built for European colonisers and was later extended to middle and high-income elite areas after independence. The development of the network has since been driven by specific economic interests (e.g. industries, hotels). The Lower Ruvu treatment plant (70% of the systems production capacity) mostly serves connected users who are located in the affluent low areas (coastal zones), the city centre and some southern neighbourhoods. The remaining 30% of water comes from the Upper Ruvu plant, the Mtoni plant and operational boreholes, serving the poorer areas of the city (the industrialised southern zone and the upper and west zones). Infrastructure funding In 1995, it was estimated that at least US$600 million was needed to repair and extend Dar es Salaam s water network to match current and projected demand, 23 a figure that kept growing until DWSSP-funded construction works first started in More recently, the government pledged an additional US$436 million over three years to further improve the city s water system. Considering that the 2010 Tanzanian state budget was US$4.66 billion, with $300 million earmarked for the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, the scale of the effort is massive. 47

48 Chapter Three The national government has been the primary source of infrastructure funding, mostly drawn from international donor monies. This is because although DAWASCO s revenue collection rose by 7.8% annually between 2007 and 2009, and by 24.3% annually between 2008 and 2010, it has not covered operational expenses and is far from covering the required capital expenditures. For instance, in 2009 DAWASCO collected roughly US$10.5 million but faced operational expenses of US$19 million. The goal remains to make sufficient revenue to cover both operational and capital expenditure, but it is clear that national government will continue to form the bulk of infrastructure funding for many years. Revenue and costs DAWASCO explains its difficulty in raising revenue by the fact that some public institutions are not paying their water bills (notably the army) and that, in general, many unsatisfied customers feel they should not pay for a poor quality service, they do not trust the metering, or simply cannot afford the service. Revenue collection has grown since DAWASCO started operations, but it has not kept pace with peak operational expenses, particularly those related to rising energy costs that make up as much as 25% of the utility s operational costs. Poor maintenance of the network and long distance transfers force DAWASCO to use considerable quantities of energy to pump the water into the city. Import of chemicals (e.g. algaefloc) also represents a substantial cost. On the whole, the ratio of costs to revenue decreased steadily between 2006 and 2008, 24 suggesting progress in DAWASCO s organisational economic efficiency, but these efforts are cancelled out by surges in energy prices, with accumulated losses now amounting to more than 230% of DAWASCO s asset value. As a result, it is unrealistic to expect revenue generation within DAWASCO to address full operating and capital cost needs. Major central government investments will be an unavoidable necessity. Water quality 48 Water quality at catchments along the Ruvu River continues to worsen, with higher turbidity every year as a consequence of more concentrated rainfall and environmental destruction in the river basin. Since completion of the construction works linked to the privatisation contract, the water produced at Ruvu plants has generally met World Health Organisation standards when leaving the plants and in the bulk water mains (with the exception of higher chlorine residues than permitted), but it degrades in the final sections of the city s network due to leaks and illegal connections, and is not safe for drinking without additional treatment. The sewer network s poor condition further adds to the problem by contaminating groundwater and at times the piped drinking water

49 From Fiasco to DAWASCO: Remunicipalising Water Systems in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania supply. New investments in the endpoints of the network would be needed to solve this problem, but as yet investments have focused only on the production side. Working conditions Staff working conditions are crucial to DAWASCO s performance. The CWS experiment was described by most interviewees as a major organisational disaster: leadership was largely perceived as illegitimate, low-ranking workers felt neglected, and the collective ethos of the organisation was badly damaged. This situation does not appear to have improved significantly since remunicipalisation: one third of employees were retrenched in 2007, following recommendations by business consultancy Ernst & Young, while new, young executives were hired and appointed in management positions, which caused resentment among older staff who felt they deserved these positions given their experience. Salary levels are also a problem as wages have been frozen since 2007 while inflation has been 10% annually on average. 25 Keeping competent staff on board is therefore a challenge and there have been numerous cases of engineers leaving the company after (expensive) training. This inability, or unwillingness, of the organisation to offer adequate salaries and/or more motivating working conditions fuels another major problem: employee corruption. Indeed, most illegal connections appear to be performed by DAWASCO employees and many of those retrenched in 2007 are thought to be earning money this way today. Water bill embezzlement and excessive charging also continue to be reported. 26 The implementation of individualised performance assessments is an attempt to increase employee oversight. The experiment began with area managers who saw part of their remuneration indexed on their fulfilment of performance indicators, including revenue collection. The scheme is now being extended to all DAWASCO employees, but with limited success considering that the paperwork it creates outweighs many of the possible benefits. Tackling these issues is all the more difficult in an organisation whose top managers are typically engineers and tend to frame problems in technical terms, allegedly not favouring a flexible approach to human resources or good relations with non-specialist stakeholders. Acknowledging outside help? In the early phase of remunicipalisation DAWASCO received considerable assistance from the public operator of Kampala s National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC) in Uganda. NWSC s External Services Unit was instrumental in advising DAWASCO on how to improve financial performance, leakage control and customer relations, notably 49

50 Chapter Three by helping designing the initial plans launched by DAWASCO s management. The first was the 100-day Operational Rescue Plan prepared in 2005 to reverse the poor performance trend. DAWASCO claims this plan led to a 36% increase in revenue collection and improved the number of metered connections and leakage control effectiveness. 27 It was followed by a win-win plan tackling the preceding issues on a longer term basis. Strangely, NWSC s role is now downplayed by many DAWASCO managers who point to the different hydrological and socio-economic contexts of the two cities. Looking ahead Public ownership, corporate decision making In some ways, the only substantial differences between DAWASCO and its private predecessor CWS are the result of the transition to public ownership and top management replacement. The institutional architecture designed for the private operator remains largely in place, with DAWASA (the semi-independent public entity) owning the infrastructure and DAWASCO (the parastatal company) acting as the asset-light company operating on the basis of a performance contract. In fact, the terms of reference of the contract between DAWASA and DAWASCO are almost identical to the one that existed between DAWASA and CWS. This unusual institutional setup was created for two reasons: it was the easiest solution at hand in the short term to guarantee the operations continuation; and the World Bank (and some officials at the Ministry of Water) wanted to keep the new operator under competitive pressure to be in line with their market-oriented way of thinking. The government also explored options for replacing the failed private contract with another one in 2005 and 2006, but no international water company was interested and so the status quo prevailed. 50 This led to an absurd and costly situation. Both DAWASCO and DAWASA are controlled by the Ministry of Water, but the former refused to recognise the latter s oversight authority and reported directly to the ministry. This mutual mistrust resulted in DAWA- SA having to pay an annual US$120,000 (almost 1% of DAWASCO s yearly revenue) for the services of an external auditing company to monitor DAWASCO s performance because it refused to report directly. The unsatisfactory performance of the latter led DAWASA to impose significant financial sanctions (US$50, ,000 per year), but these remained symbolic since DAWASA had agreed in December 2005 to wait five years before asking DAWASCO to pay the lease fee and associated performance-based bonuses or sanctions. The situation has begun to change with the appointment of a new CEO at DAWASCO, whose conciliatory approach has enabled a more collaborative

51 From Fiasco to DAWASCO: Remunicipalising Water Systems in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania relationship, and their respective boards are now in regular contact. Although many managers in both entities now speak in favour of a merger between DAWASA and DAWASCO, the World Bank remains opposed to the idea and the option is not yet on the table at the ministry. Instead, the lease contract is still being renegotiated between the two parties. A commercial management culture This institutional setup of DAWASCO as an independent corporation also meant that its absolute priority was, and remains, that of increasing the revenue it receives from the water and sewerage services it provides. This translated into important efforts to clean customers data, upgrade the billing system with the purchase of new and costly specialised software (US$978,000) and diversify payment options (through mobiles phones, supermarkets, internet, etc). This modernisation drive is hindered by the low reliability of the whole system, irregular water supply and dubious metering, which all undermine the legitimacy of bills. The use of large-scale communication, media alerts and even scare tactics (e.g. temporary disconnections of entire neighbourhoods) to convince water users to pay for water managed to increase revenue by 37% between and , 28 but DAWASCO also saw a surge in operational expenses over the same period. As a result, it has been piling up losses. The situation is now so dire that some senior managers at DAWASCO are considering opening up new businesses to generate revenue on the side for their company. A striking fact emerging from interviews with most DAWASCO senior executives is indeed their desire to perform as well as the private sector, a statement heard again and again, particularly when discussing DAWASCO s economic difficulties. This definition of performance was also framed in private sector terms: financial efficiency and profitability were seen as preconditions to improvements in other service areas such as reliability, quality, safety and affordability. Whether this marketised attitude is a result of increasing neoliberal influence in the country, or the anti-public sector stigma associated with state bureaucracy of the past, or both, is difficult to say, but revenue obsession is also a product of the fact that the company s only legitimate revenue comes from water billing. The (crucial) financial contributions from central government and DAWASA that enable DAWASCO s operational survival are ad hoc and associated with a repeated and humiliating failure message. Another sign of the growing prevalence of a corporate culture is the systematic use of private business consultancies 29 to back major management decisions (layoffs, performance monitoring, etc) and the use of mainstream business management tools such as individualised performance assessments for employees. 51

52 Chapter Three Development partners as decision-makers Source: Dawasco news, Issue No. 2, July-September 2007 The water situation in Dar es Salaam is a recurring topic on the national political agenda, and it featured prominently in the 2010 presidential elections. 30 Re-elected President Jakaya Kikwete vowed to end the city s water problems in a major speech in July 2010 when he promised to expand water production capacity to 710 million litres a day by with US funds from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and to inject extra government money to develop the city s water treatment plants and exploit deep coastal aquifers south of the city. 31 But these promises are still very recent and history calls for caution in this regard: Kikwete made similar electoral pledges in his 2005 presidential campaign, 32 but the only large-scale public investment made was in a water transfer project from Lake Victoria to the Shinyanga region where there is a boom in gold mining. 33 Nonetheless, the government seems committed this time around and Parliament has supported a 15% increase in the Ministry of Water s budget for 2011, 34 as well as the launch of a US$436 million program to upgrade Dar es Salaam s water infrastructure But one must look beyond political rhetoric and go to the source of this funding. Monies come largely from development agencies and are attached to very specific conditions. International development partners have controlled key decisions related to the

53 From Fiasco to DAWASCO: Remunicipalising Water Systems in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania development of Dar es Salaam s water systems since the late 1990s. The US$164 million DWSSP loan offered by the World Bank in 2003 that imposed privatisation only expired in November 2010 and is now being replaced by a US$951 million Water Sector Support Project (WSSP) in which the Bank is teaming up with other international donors (MCC, African Development Bank, a German bank and the Netherlands development agency, among others). 36 This powerful, but locally unaccountable, political influence infuriates many water managers in DAWASCO, at least those who feel confident enough to speak openly about the problem. The general feeling is that international donors jump ship when there are problems but claim any success for themselves. Foreign water specialists are seen by many as self-interested and taking what they need from the country before leaving. A more specific reproach made to international financial institutions is that loans allow them to get the country under their thumb and force Tanzanians to develop as they are told to. One DAWASCO executive summarised this rather bluntly: If you want to get rid of them, you have to pay them their money back! But in the meantime they own you. 37 Another interviewee complained about having to lose time in meetings in which his only role was to sip coffee, munch biscuits, nod here and there and be used as proof that the local stakeholders have participated in the project. 38 Political and financial dependency undermines ownership and managers commitment. A good example of this is found in the work program of a currently very active donor, the MCC. The MCC is a US foreign aid agency created in 2004 by former president George W. Bush. Its primary objective is to foster economic growth in developing countries through good economic policies. 39 Contributing a US$207 million grant to the WSSP, the MCC funds two projects in Dar es Salaam: the expansion of the Lower Ruvu treatment plant and a non-revenue water reduction program. The expansion aims to increase the plant s capacity by 50%, up to 270,000 m 3 a day. 40 The problem is that the Ruvu river s dry season discharge is sometimes already too low to produce at full capacity, and the phenomenon has worsened over the past decades, climate change and deforestation factoring in. This means that the projected added capacity will be useless until completion of the construction of a large dam upstream (Kidunda) scheduled to start in and last three years. However, this dam is already an old project that started with the Japanese cooperation agency that wanted to support its construction in the 1990s but backtracked after realising the potential socio-ecological damage and other shortcomings of the project. 41 The World Bank is now funding the initiative despite some water managers pointing at other possible and more sustainable sources. The government of Tanzania asked for a smaller dam downstream, 42 but works are underway and another reversal is unlikely. 53

54 Chapter Three Conditions to access MCC funding cause a second set of problems. Although the funds are a grant and not a loan, they come with a string of strict policy requirements. The 2008 compact states that the water and sewerage authorities will be required to submit rate cases aimed at achieving operational and maintenance financial sustainability within the Compact Term and a sustainable trend for recovery of asset depreciation. 43 One can read between the lines that this refers to full cost recovery. This is confirmed by the compact s Monitoring and Evaluation Document, which mentions as a first risk for the project the inability of the government to implement tariffs reforms falling short of recovery costs. 44 Another source at DAWASA was more specific, talking about a full cost recovery objective for tariffs to be implemented by the last year of the project, that is, by With current tariff levels that are far below full cost recovery and new planned investments, this means that the water tariffs in Dar es Salaam are meant to increase by %. The catch-22 is that tariffs are regulated by the independent EWURA, which refused tariff increases twice in How can the government of Tanzania guarantee that the tariffs will increase as required by MCC without impinging upon the regulator s independence? This promises to be a contentious issue in the near future. On the one hand President Kikwete has insisted that he wants to keep water tariffs low, 46 on the other hand section 3.4(c) of the Compact states that the Government shall not invoke any of the provisions of its internal law to justify or excuse a failure to perform its duties or responsibilities under this Compact. 47 This brief overview of DAWASCO s inner workings and institutional and political environment only suggests that although formally owned by the government and formally a public company, DAWASCO is far from being a public entity politically accountable to, and directed by, users of the city s water systems. But this is mostly out of DAWASCO s control: the Tanzanian government is legally required to implement international donors policy recommendations and conditions, even if this means unaccountability to the population affected by these decisions. 54 Conclusion The CWS privatisation experience imposed by international donor conditions was a massive failure that resulted from the private operator s poor preparation, difficult relationships with staff, and shareholder in-fighting. The fact that the Tanzanian government precipitated the termination of the contract in an abrupt manner and used this termination to score political points before a presidential campaign was not enough for the private company to win its two legal claims against Tanzania at UNCITRAL and ICSID, two arbitration courts normally friendly to private investors interests.

55 From Fiasco to DAWASCO: Remunicipalising Water Systems in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Given this record, it is a remarkable achievement that its public successor DAWASCO was able to rise from CWS s ashes and reverse the performance trend to increase coverage and revenue, if only partially. However, its strong focus on cost recovery without radical improvements to the system has led to the use of problematic tactics. Performance remains fragile and irregular, direct access to the network remains with a small minority located in the most affluent areas of the city, and the majority of the population has to rely on indirect access at much higher prices. The real improvements come from capital works that are paid for by the central government, itself relying heavily on international development institutions. These institutions impose conditions that shape the system s structural evolution, both technically and ideologically, without being accountable to the users of the systems. In this sense, the remunicipalisation of water in Dar es Salaam is a default situation created by the collapse of a private contract, not a strategic move planned by sovereign political institutions. If political sovereignty is a condition for sustainability, then the limited choices imposed by donor conditionality must be seen as one of the biggest obstacles to solving Dar es Salaam s water woes in the long run. Endnotes 1 Podesta, J.J. (2006) Julius Nyerere. Farmington Hills (MI): Gale Contemporary Black Biography, Gale. 2 World Bank (2000) Report and recommendations on the programmatic structural adjustment credit for Tanzania (P-7376-TA). Washington, DC: World Bank. 3 The Guardian (1999) Julius Nyerere, 15 October. oct/15/guardianobituaries (accessed 12 December 2011). 4 Skinner, A. (2005) Tanzania & Zanzibar. London: Cadogan Guides, p Munyaga, M. (2000) Participatory approach revives adult education in Tanzania. Presentation at the World Education Forum, International Consultative Forum on Education for All convened by UNDP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF and the World Bank, Dakar, Senegal. unesco.org/education/wef/en-news/tanzania.shtm (accessed 12 December 2011). 6 Harrison, G. (2004) The World Bank and Africa: The construction of governance states. London and New York: Routledge. 7 National Bureau of Statistics, Republic of Tanzania (2002) Population and Housing Census. Dar es Salaam: NBS. 8 Dongus, S. (2000) Vegetable production on open spaces in Dar es Salaam Spatial changes from 1992 to Freiburg: Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg/Germany, Institute of Physical Geography. (accessed 12 December 2011). 9 The figure breaks down as follows: $61.5 million from IDA, $48 million from AfDB, $34 million from EIB, $12.6 million from DAWASA and $8.5 million from the private operator CWS. 55

59 Aguas Públicas: Buenos Aires in Muddled Waters In 1993 the private consortium Aguas Argentinas SA (AASA), headed by the French multinational Suez, was granted a 30-year concession to run the integrated water and sanitation services of the Buenos Aires metropolitan area. At the time it was the largest of such private concessions in the world, serving roughly nine million people in Argentina. The contract was imbued with neoliberal recommendations and was heralded as a flagship privatisation to be replicated in other countries. 2 In what followed, the private operator failed to comply with contractual obligations, but Argentine authorities turned a blind eye. However, in 2006 the government cancelled the AASA concession and thenpresident Nestor Kirchner returned the responsibility for water and sanitation services to the public sector. Strictly speaking, the de-privatisation of AASA was not a case of remunicipalisation. First, the concession had been granted by the federal government and not by municipal authorities. Second, it was taken over by a newly created public company, Agua y Saneamientos Argentinos (AySA), under the control of the national government. Nevertheless, the water service operates at a municipal level and lessons learned from this case are relevant to the subject matter of this book. In particular, the case highlights how the privatisation of water and sanitation makes it difficult to reorganise around public objectives, especially those of subordinating profitability to higher social priorities of universal access to quality water services. In the first part of the chapter we review key aspects of AASA s concession to contextualise the cancellation of the private contract. We then analyse the long and conflictive process of contract renegotiation that took place between 2002 and 2006, involving not only the national government, Congress and the private operator but also foreign governments, international tribunals, workers unions (mainly the Sanitary Works Union of the Great Buenos Aires, SEGBATOS), non-governmental organisations and independent public institutions, among others. Part three reviews problems associated with the normative and regulatory institutions that emerged with renationalisation and the creation of AySA. Finally, the performance and main characteristics of the public operator are examined. We conclude by drawing lessons from Buenos Aires disastrous experience with privatisation and how this affects shifts to public water services. Cashing in on poor performance The troublesome history of the AASA concession can be divided in two periods: from , and from The first period was characterised by recurring contractual modifications, mostly associated with tariff increases and by repeated government complaints about AASA s failure to honour the contract in relation to investment commitments, expansion targets, environmental protection and service quality, among other issues. Yet, authorities showed leniency in face of the financial strategy adopted by 59

60 Chapter Four the private operator, which would come to have disastrous consequences. This period was marked by the systematic subordination of authorities to the interests of the private operator, with initial government complacency turning into an unwillingness to pay the political cost of interrupting an emblematic privatisation effort. The second period concerns the long-delayed process of contract renegotiation that was triggered by the abandonment of fixed parity of the Argentine peso with the US dollar. The terms of the original concession, the main modifications introduced afterwards, and the underlying drivers of the concessionaire s strategy help understand the dynamics of these two periods. In a nutshell, in the original contract the operator committed to: 1) universalisation of access by 2023 (100% coverage for water from 70% in 1993 and 95% from 58% for sewerage); 2) improvement of service quality to meet international standards; and 3) incorporation of new technologies for wastewater treatment. This was to be achieved while maintaining reasonable services tariffs, with an initial reduction of 26.9% of the existing tariff. 3 The original contract divided the life of the concession into six five-year periods, and contract revisions were to take place at the end of each period to verify the operator s compliance with expansion targets, investments, and the tariff freeze that was integral to the original bid. However, the first 10 years of the concession were subsequently exempted from the tariff freeze requirement as requested in the private company s offer. Monitoring compliance was to be the shared responsibility of the service regulator and of the Tripartite Entity for Sanitary Works and Services (ETOSS, in its Spanish acronym), according to the Regulatory Framework set by Decree 999/1992. As for the quality of water supply and sewerage services the contract adopted the physical-chemical and bacteriological parameters recommended by the World Health Organisation. Specific environmental protection measures were agreed to, which required the concessionary to build wastewater treatment plants with the objective of progressively eliminating the pollution of water sources. Tariff regulation was based on a mean income per user cap for the private operator whereby ETOSS could demand tariff reductions if this income were to exceed a set level. As with many other terms of the original contract, this criterion was modified in contractual renegotiations in following years, much to the benefit of the private company. 60 The contract also established two possibilities to grant tariff adjustments: ordinary and extraordinary. The former would be considered during the performance reviews at the end of the five-year periods, while the latter could be granted in cases of changes in the company s operational costs as measured by a special index. Before the end of the first year of the concession AASA requested an extraordinary revision of the tariff arguing that it had suffered unforeseen operational losses and ETOSS allowed a 13.5% tariff

61 Aguas Públicas: Buenos Aires in Muddled Waters increase, on top of a considerable rise in the fixed infrastructure charge levied on newly connected users. 4 From then on, AASA s concession was characterised by a worsening record of noncompliance with contractual targets, particularly regarding the pace of investments, the expansion of coverage, and the quality of services. It was also marked by the operator s relentless pressure to squeeze concessions from the authorities, including demands to dollarise the tariffs and to tackle widespread non-payment of the infrastructure charge by newly connected users. The government responded favourably to the company s demands and in 1997 set up a process to renegotiate the concession contract that brought about substantive modifications to the original terms (Decrees 149/97 and 1167). The renegotiations continued between 1997 and 1999, resulting in additional modifications to respond to the private operator s interests. The new terms of the contract included: the effective dollarisation of the tariff that came to tie directly to the evolution of a US price index; the elimination of the regulatory principle that capped the mean income per user; the provision for yearly extraordinary revisions of the contract; and the cancellation or postponement of investment commitments originally agreed to. In this context, the first five-year review originally scheduled for 1998 was delayed until 2001, when a new Five- Year Plan was negotiated behind closed doors between AASA and ETOSS. The new plan contemplated additional tariff increases as requested by the operator to comply with the investment targets, including new fixed charges. During the period , ETOSS estimates that AASA only met 60.9% of its contractual investment and expansion targets; a poor performance considering that this figure was calculated on the basis of the lower renegotiated investment commitments (ETOSS, 2003). In terms of environmental protection, AASA did not deliver on these commitments either, with dangerous substances (such as arsenic, cyanide, heavy metals and nitrates) remaining well above recommended World Health Organisation levels. As a case in point, AASA had not assessed potential environmental impacts when it decided to close a number of underground water wells in the southern area of Greater Buenos Aires, leaving municipalities reliant on water supplies pumped from La Plata River. This decision eventually caused a rise of the water table, which led to flooding of buildings and streets in the municipalities of Lomas de Zamora, Quilmes and Morón; it also worsened the pollution of the underground water sources in the region. In 2001 the municipality of Berazategui presented a lawsuit against AASA for failing to comply with the original contractual commitments to build adequate treatment facilities for the sewage that was still being released untreated into La Plata. Later on, evidence of this type of negative environmental impacts of AASA s activities would contribute to the cancellation of the contract. 5 Lack of compliance with the original commitments was also reflected in the failure to meet expansion targets. The target for water supply was to increase coverage from 70% 61

62 Chapter Four to 88% by 2002, but it had only risen to 79% by then. The target for sewerage was to increase coverage from 58% to 74%, but it barely reached 63%. This means that by 2002, 800,000 people were still left without access to water, and more than one million without sewerage services. The figure is substantially higher if we consider the original targets for primary wastewater treatment for which AASA complied only at 7%, thus leaving more than six million people without this service. 6 Another indicator of poor performance is the increasingly regressive evolution of the tariff. First, between May 1993 and January 2002 the mean residential tariff increased by 87.9%, while during the same period the Consumer Price Index only increased by 7.3%. Second, during the contract renegotiations a number of progressive tariff criteria that provided some level of cross-subsidy to support lower income users were removed, and this is reflected in the impact of the tariff hikes on different groups of users. In the same period, the basic tariff increased by 177% and the average bill by 62%, but high consumption users only saw a 44% rise. 7 Under these conditions, the private company cashed in on a mean profit rate of more than 20% over net assets and around 13.3% over aggregated revenues between 1994 and Low price elasticity of demand and relative stability of consumption, coupled with null risk guaranteed by the complacency and leniency of the regulatory authorities, meant that AASA was allowed to make extraordinary profits while failing to deliver on contractual commitments. AASA also minimised the use of its own private resources and accumulated a disproportionate level of debt to fund the investments. Between May 1993 and December 2001, only 2.6% of AASA s total investments came from its own funds. The company acquired huge debts well above the maximum levels permitted in the original contract, mostly with multilateral financial bodies at interest rates much lower than those available in the local market. This strategy would eventually have disastrous results, not least because AASA dismissed the potential risks of future devaluations. Thus, when the peso-dollar parity was ended in 2002 the private operator faced a debt of US$700 million, which then represented over three years of gross revenue and over 20 times the net value of the company. This also explains why in 2002 AASA s account deficit was 13% higher than the total amount billed that year. To summarise, the first period of the concession was marked by a series of contractual modifications, mostly related to tariff increases, and by a lack of compliance with investment commitments, expansion targets, environmental protection and service quality. All the while, the company was stacking up profits and debts. 62 The renationalisation saga The passage of the Law of Economic Emergency and Exchange Regime (Law 25561)

63 Aguas Públicas: Buenos Aires in Muddled Waters in early 2002 triggered the cancellation of AASA s contract. The legislation ended fixed parity between the Argentine peso and the US dollar and established a new operational context for companies privatised during the 1990s. In particular, it cancelled the indexing mechanisms previously enforced to increase tariffs and reverted to local currency public service tariffs (pesificación). It stipulated that all contracts with privatised companies would be subject to renegotiation but in the meantime private operators could not suspend or alter the terms of compliance with their contractual obligations. In this context, the AASA renegotiation entered a complex stage. The private company reacted immediately by putting pressure on the government, directly and through its foreign shareholders, notably appealing to the World Bank s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). 8 In addition, the governments of the countries where shareholders were based, especially France, rallied with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to press Argentina to resolve the matter to AASA s advantage. These developments imposed severe restrictions and worsened the conditions for the long-delayed and already conflictive process of contract renegotiation. AASA had not changed its approach since the 1990s and showed no inclination to accept the loss of the privileges it enjoyed for almost a decade. Within days of the enactment of the new law, AASA prepared an emergency plan and made a number of requests to the government: to provide retroactive insurance to cover its external debt of around US$700 million, to grant a peso-dollar parity for its imports (mostly internal transactions between foreign and local branches of the consortium companies), and to suspend all investments unilaterally and indiscriminately. 9 However, when Nestor Kirchner assumed the presidency in 2003 his government seriously considered revoking the contract. There was a strong sense that the privatisations of the 1990s, particularly AASA s, carried a heavy social cost. A number of official reports 10 and evidence gathered by civil society organisations, including user and consumer groups and NGOs, suggested that there was sufficient proof of non-compliance to annul the contract. A number of other options were on the table, for instance private management (preferably with a different shareholder structure) with more state intervention for infrastructure planning and development, or an adapted contract to facilitate the private management of the company but to fully transfer the responsibility for infrastructure expansion and maintenance to the government. 11 Following the 2002 Argentina default on its public debt, a clear priority for the government was to find a solution that would prevent taking charge of AASA s huge debt and that would avert harsh international pressures. Hence, in May 2004 the government signed an agreement that maintained tariff levels, suspended fines for contractual noncompliance and committed to pumping public money into infrastructure works while 63

64 Chapter Four binding AASA to suspend its request for arbitration before the ICSID and to present a plan to restructure its external debt. However, the renegotiation took a new turn in October 2004 when AASA submitted a new proposal that revived the confrontational character of the process. AASA s proposal included a series of steps oriented at reconstituting the economic-financial equilibrium of the concession: a revenue increase of 60% from January 2005; state intervention to obtain a loan for US$250 million to be repaid in 18 years at an interest rate of 3%, with a three-year holiday period; government commitment to take charge of 48% of future infrastructure investments; and exemption from income tax. Argentine authorities deemed the proposal unacceptable, marking a turning point in the renegotiations. The process became even more antagonistic in the following months, possibly because the private operator s main shareholders sensed that the ICSID would rule in their favour and against Argentina. 12 Finally, after mounting confrontations, the government passed Decrees of Necessity and Urgency 303/2006 and 304/2006 in March 2006 to cancel AASA s concession and create the public company AySA under a participatory ownership scheme (the state owns 90% and the workers union owns 10%) to immediately take responsibility for the provision of water and sanitation services. 64 An imperfect institutional design The case of AySA was unique in the series of renationalisations implemented by the Kirchner administration in that it sought to consolidate the operational-institutional environment of the new public company in normative terms. The proposed Regulatory Framework submitted to Congress in November 2006 set sector-specific norms for water and sanitation embedded in a national law rather than relying on ad hoc special decrees sanctioned by the executive, as had been the rule during the 1990s. Moreover, it appeared it would allow public debate on water and sanitation and on public goods more broadly. Unfortunately, the impact of this well-intentioned initiative was limited due to a number of factors. In Congress, as much as in society, debate remained limited since the government was able to pass the law quickly thanks to the majority it enjoyed in both chambers. 13 The March 2007 law had a number of important shortcomings in light of existing international standards and experiences. For example, there was no provision for public discussion of the AASA renationalisation process even though there had not previously been massive public mobilisation to end the private concession with the exception of protests organised by the Coordinator of Neighbourhood Assemblies against Aguas Argentinas. The new legislation created a new regulatory body for monitoring and control, the Water and Sanitation Regulatory Entity (ERAS), within the Ministry of Federal Planning,

65 Aguas Públicas: Buenos Aires in Muddled Waters Public Investment and Services (MINPLAN). Its three directors were appointed by the federal executive without public competition based on professional merit and without consultation with Congress. Thus, from the start it was clear that the degree of autonomy of the new regulator was seriously compromised. The law also established the creation of the Planning Agency (APLA), also within MINPLAN, with responsibility for the evaluation, study, planning, projection, execution and control of investments. 14 The Under Secretariat of Water Resources (SSRH) became the implementing authority with the responsibility for setting water and sanitation tariffs, and its director would be the same as APLA s. These considerations illustrate that despite the important advances made through setting up a new public entity, the institutional design of AySA had significant shortcomings. These range from the vague delimitation of incumbencies for the various bodies, aggravated by the multiplication of government agencies involved, to the limitation of the role of the regulator to functions of monitoring and control, to the concentration of the authority for implementation, planning and regulation in the hands of MINPLAN. Furthermore, the new law does not obligate public consultations for substantial modifications to the system (e.g. alterations in the tariff system or in expansion targets). Participation is limited to consultations organised by the user syndicate, an entity operating voluntarily and constituted by recognised organisations defending user interests. The law provided for the parallel creation of a consumer watchdog entity to represent users in public hearings and judicial or administrative procedures; its head would be appointed through public competition based on professional credentials, a process that only started in late Clearly, users had little if any opportunity to participate in crucial decisions such as tariff setting or infrastructure planning. When the much delayed incorporation of user representation in ERAS through the consumer watchdog, and to a lesser extent through the user syndicate, finally comes into effect, it will be merely tokenistic unless significant changes are introduced. Summing up, the creation of AySA permitted important advances, particularly by putting in place a regulatory framework specific to the water and sanitation sector that facilitates control and monitoring. However, the concentration of regulatory and other functions in the hands of the executive strays from international best practice. Today, AySA s institutional and operational environment is fragmented and all decision making is centralised. Assessing AySA s performance Although AySA is still relatively new, it is useful to assess its performance from the perspective of efficiency. The conventional, neoclassical understanding of efficiency gives 65

66 Chapter Four priority to the profit rate of a stand-alone organisation. We argue that it is necessary to go beyond these narrow confines and to recover a broader meaning of efficiency that includes state subsidies in the provision of essential public goods and services, and recognises the social and environmental benefits of investments that go beyond a single agency or sector. If we were to accept the neoclassical position, the performance of AASA between 1993 and 2001 would be considered highly efficient, as it delivered a mean profit rate of over 20% on net assets. By contrast, the efficiency of AySA since its creation would be considered negative. Despite receiving direct transfers from the national budget equivalent to 60% of gross revenue, the company s 2010 balance sheet showed losses of 18.5% over gross revenue and 6.6% over net assets. 15 Alternatively, if we give analytical priority to such indicators as the expansion of access to water and sanitation services to achieve essential social objectives, then AySA s performance to date would have to be considered much more efficient than its predecessor s. When AySA began operations in March 2006 the deficit in service coverage was 16% (1.5 million people) for potable water and 36% (3.5 million people) for sewerage. In response, AySA implemented the Plan for Immediate Action (PIA), involving infrastructure investments of roughly US$40 million. The PIA had several sub-components and was mainly oriented to: 1) recovering the quality of services (Nitrates Plan), which had deteriorated in some areas due to poor environmental management by AASA; 2) expanding the capacity for treatment and transportation of drinking water and increasing access to new users; and 3) rehabilitating and renewing the infrastructure to guarantee service provision during periods of peak demand. 66 A more comprehensive roadmap, the Water Supply and Sanitation Master Plan (WSMP), was launched in October 2006 by President Kirchner. It sets the priority goal of securing rapid universal access to water and sanitation services for AySA. The WSMP is divided into two phases, the Five-Year Plan ( ) and the post-2012 period. The initial Five-Year Plan aims to achieve full universalisation of access to water (connecting 1.5 million new people) by 2012 and expanding the coverage for sewerage to 80% of the population (connecting 1.4 million new people). It also sets targets for improvements in the quality of drinking water and rehabilitation of infrastructure. For 2020, the WSMP aims to extend the coverage for sewerage services to 95% of the population, while also providing for the maintenance and renewal of the infrastructure and improving environmental health. The WSMP represents a total investment of roughly US$5.7 billion, and funding responsibility is shared by AySA (52%) and the national government (38%), while the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (5%) and the governments of the Province of Buenos Aires and the conurbated municipalities (5%) also contribute to the effort.

67 Aguas Públicas: Buenos Aires in Muddled Waters In brief, looking at AySA s economic-financial performance requires one to remember that the raison d être of the company is not to make profit, provide value to private shareholders or become a water and sanitation utility that can compete on international markets. AySA s aim is to universalise access in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area by 2020 and, as such, it forms part of a political program that prioritises public and environmental health and well-being. The national government has committed to huge investments to meet these goals because it concluded that sufficient funding cannot come from AySA s revenues. Concretely, the federal government has granted increased transfers, which in 2009 amounted to roughly US$137 million and were projected to rise to US$340 million in Crucial political decisions will have to be made to balance between the possibility of economic-financial self-sufficiency of the company and the higher societal goals set by the WSMP for It is important to critically evaluate the current economicfinancial model in order to anticipate potential problems that may jeopardise the future performance of the utility and, consequently, the ability of the government to meet the targets. Among the key factors that influence AySA s chances of meeting its objectives are the infrastructure programs funded by the National Entity for Sanitation Water Works (ENOHSA) and tariff policies, to which we turn now. Tariff policy The WSMP explicitly recognises that AySA s revenues will not be sufficient to fund the investments needed to meet its ambitious targets, which has proven true since 2007 as revenues have been consistently lower than operational costs. 16 This situation calls for a critical examination of the present tariff structure. A revision of tariffs could help to introduce more equity and solidarity among users, induce more rational water use, and allow for a reduction in the contribution required from the national budget to reallocate resources in priority areas. It is worth recalling that water and sanitation tariffs have been frozen since January 2002, while the Consumer Price Index has increased by 150% as of November It is evident that the policy has had a significant impact on the company s revenue. Moreover, the tariff structure was inherited from AASA, which, as explained earlier, showed a number of distortions due to regressive fixed charges introduced during the renegotiations of the original contract. An unexpected outcome of the decision to maintain the tariff structure has been the entrenchment of unacceptable inequalities in the system, inequalities that have been substantially worsened by the effect of the tariff freeze. This situation is particularly noticeable in the case of the so-called free tap (canilla libre) system, in use by high volume and high income users. In addition to the long overdue review of all fixed charges introduced during AASA s concession, it would have been important to update and extend 67

68 Chapter Four the value of some tariff components that are responsible for ensuring a higher degree of fairness in the system. In particular, tariff formula coefficients Z (socio-economic conditions of the area as proxy for user payment capacity) and E (quality and age of the building), which in principle provide the mechanism to charge more to high-income users than to poor users, should have been reviewed because they have proved insufficient. In other words, there is a need to update and extend the system of cross-subsidies that was part of the original tariff structure adopted at privatisation but that was later abandoned through the successive contract renegotiations. This is important not only to establish a fairer charging system but also to induce a more rational use of the services given that the tariff freeze has brought about a substantial drop in the cost of water and sanitation services for users, which tends to promote wasteful water use particularly among the welloff. Until tariff structures are re-evaluated and actual consumption is metered, it is hard to see how AySA campaigns for user education about water use can be effective. Granted, some efforts were made to redress imbalances in the tariff structure inherited from the 1990s. For instance, the first ordinary contract renegotiation with AASA in 2001 introduced a Social Tariff that was implemented the following year. This tariff is targeted to vulnerable families that cannot afford to pay the cost of the services, and its application involves a complex set of actors including the WSS utility, the regulator, user and consumer bodies, neighbourhood associations, and local authorities. The tariff consists of a subsidy that varies according to the needs and characteritics of the households. Until 2008 the number of beneficiaries of the scheme ranged between 100, ,000 households but in 2009 the figure dropped to 57,329 households, receiving an average subsidy of US$2.90 per month. 17 This could be explained as the combined result of the drop in WSS bills caused by the tariff freeze and the clear improvement in the socioeconomic conditions of poorer families recorded in recent years. However, the Social Tariff is just one among many programs targeted to protect the needs of the poorer users that were initially implemented to counter the impact of privatisation. Infrastructure and expansion of access 68 Current infrastructure and access initiatives are the product of the first five-year review, originally scheduled in the AASA privatisation contract to take place in 1998 but only completed in 2001, that brought about a renegotiation of key aspects of the agreement. Indeed, this process generated a number of new initiatives aimed at compensating for the failures of the private company to deliver on targets originally agreed to regarding the expansion of coverage to low income sectors. These initiatives were to be publicly funded or based on the provision of labour and resources by the communities themselves; for instance the Participatory Management Model (MPG), also known as the Plan for Poor Neighbourhoods, was initiated in 2003 and the Water+Work Plan funded by ENOHSA was implemented in 2004 and taken over by AySA in May 2007.

69 Aguas Públicas: Buenos Aires in Muddled Waters The MPG is organised through the shared work of AySA, the municipalities and neighbourhood communities, with neighbours providing the labour force to receive discounts on water and sanitation bills in return. The MPG is almost fully funded by AySA who also provides the technical supervision of the works, and its objective is to expand water and sanitation coverage to very poor communities. Although the impact of the MPG has been modest it has nonetheless allowed the connection of around 44,000 people to the water supply and around half as many to the sewerage network. More importantly, the Water+Work Plan has played a significant role in the expansion of the water network in recent years. This plan has multiple objectives, including the alleviation of the sanitary risk affecting the population lacking access to water and sanitation services, reducing the cost of network expansion in low income neighbourhoods, and the promotion of job opportunities through the creation of cooperatives. Since 2007, AySA funds and contributes to the design and supervision of infrastructure works while labour is provided by work cooperatives. These cooperatives are integrated by neighbours who are beneficiaries of social assistance or unemployed without welfare benefits. The SEGBATOS also plays an important role in the training of the cooperative workers, while the municipalities are in charge of leading the projects. Since the creation of AySA in 2006, the Water+Work Plan has helped to connect over 330,000 people to the water supply network, and it is expected that an additional 550,000 will be connected through projects that started in late This is a major contribution toward the objectives set by the government in the WSMP. Building on this success, the sister plan Sewerage+Oriented Work was started in This initiative involves a number of ongoing projects that are expected to connect over 16,000 people to the sewerage network in the Buenos Aires conurbated municipalities in the near future. 19 A common characteristic of these programs is the direct involvement of residents, mostly from vulnerable communities, and their technical training to expand the water supply and sewerage networks and to improve access to the services provided by AySA. They give a significant boost to the central objectives set by the government in the Five-Year Plan ( ), as a first step toward the universalisation of provision by By the end of 2009, AySA was able to connect over 540,000 people to the water supply network. Through the projects already being implemented it plans to extend the service to 415,000 more people by the end of In relation to sewerage, a total of 77,285 users were connected by late 2009, and AySA s current projects will include over 525,000 people by Thus, APLA authorities are confident that the targets set in the Five-Year Plan will be met. 20 Bringing workers on board AySA s operational performance is strongly dependent on the collaboration of the SEG- BATOS workers union, a union that played an active role in the privatisation of the 69

70 Chapter Four utility in the 1990s when it was promised a share of 10% on the privatised utility. The company s president, Dr Carlos Ben, is closely associated with the union and was himself a member of the committee in charge of the privatisation program and later adjunct director of AASA. This strong involvement of Ben and the union in the business of the privatised utility is recurrently commented upon by critics who see worrying continuities with the past in the running of the renationalised utility. These problems are difficult to ignore. The national government has tried to dismiss these criticisms, notably in a speech delivered by Kirchner during the public announcement of the WSMP on October 12, 2006: I do not have any doubt that the workers of the company AySA, working with the Argentinean people, with the providers, and through the public bids that we will be launching, will give a true example of what Argentineans are able to do. I am absolutely convinced. 21 It should be noted that AySA s workforce has grown steadily, from 4,058 employees in 2006 to 4,596 in This is not far from the numbers reached during the privatisation period, with 4,267 AASA workers in Considering the level of productivity as measured by the ratio between cubic meters of raw water produced per day to the number of workers, AySA s current performance shows positive trends: slightly over 1000 m 3 per worker as compared to m 3 per worker recorded by AASA in AySA s technicians and professionals benefit from a diversity of training programs organised with the active participation of SEGBATOS, covering technical, commercial, and administrative aspects. Also, there are training workshops for skilled workers in welding, mechanics and electro-mechanics, among other areas. The hours of training provided through these programs to AySA s workforce have significantly increased, from 21,874 hours in 2006 to 60,000 hours in Moreover, the evidence suggests that AySA has been diligent in developing better working conditions in terms of safety and hygiene. 70 Conclusion The recent experience with water and sanitation services in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area reveals useful lessons about rebuilding public utilities in the aftermath of privatisation. The case of Argentina is particularly valuable because of the abrupt changes in the macroeconomic, social and political contexts, forcing us to examine the ruptures and continuities between 1990s neoliberalism and post-2002 state-led economic and social policies. A wealth of literature has been dedicated to the performance of AASA, and we have only reviewed some of its key aspects here. The main conclusions are that the privatised company failed to comply with contractual obligations and followed a strategy driven

71 Aguas Públicas: Buenos Aires in Muddled Waters by the pursuit of extraordinary profits. This strategy was successful for AASA during the period of forced stability of the Argentine currency ( ), but imploded with the collapse of the neoliberal model in The economic, financial, environmental, political and social costs of the privatisation of Buenos Aires water and sanitation services have yet to be fully understood, but evidence shows that these costs were very high and will compromise the ability of Argentina to achieve universalisation of essential public services by In this respect, an example of the structural (and structuring) conditions that constitute the legacies of the neoliberal period are the different binding agreements signed by countries like Argentina to protect foreign investments, notably bilateral investment promotion and protection agreements (IPPAs). 26 These agreements have allowed private corporations such as Suez to sue governments that decide to terminate privatisation contracts even if the cancellation of the contract is justified by non-compliance on the part of the private operator. Argentina alone is facing dozens of such cases presented to the ICSID, including those by corporations like Enron that face corruption and money laundering charges in the United States but thanks to the IPPAs have a right to seek compensation in countries of the South. The performance of AySA since 2006 is therefore marked by the tension between laudable efforts on the part of the national government to prioritise the universalisation of water services on one side, and the drag exerted by the legacies of privatisation on the other. Be it because of the inertia of high-ranking cadres initially associated with the privatisation experiment continuing to exert their influence on policy and operation, or the irrational tariff structure inherited from AASA, or the negative environmental impacts of contract non-compliance, the positive effects of bringing services back under public control have been limited by the institutional framework adopted for the public sector provider. There is a need to improve the strategic planning of AySA s activities by incorporating all relevant dimensions of water services, particularly environmental issues which, although formally integrated, have been neglected in practice. AySA is under mounting pressure to take a more active role in the integral management of the metropolitan river basins that were historically abandoned and are now heavily polluted. A ruling by the Supreme Court passed in 2008 has ordered the government to take the necessary measures to clean up the highly polluted Matanza-Riachuelo basin, which raises the cost of water management exponentially in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area but also has very significant implications elsewhere. This decision came after long-standing mobilisation by a broad alliance of citizen organisations, water users, NGOs, local governments and environmental groups. This has serious implications for the future of AySA s management structures and performance and the public utility will have to consider pleas for institutionalised 71

72 Chapter Four mechanisms for meaningful user participation in pursuit of democratisation of water governance in the country. These problems notwithstanding, renationalisation of the water and sanitation utility in Buenos Aires has brought about important and necessary transformations in the way these services are governed and managed, which offers important lessons for similar renationalisation or remunicipalisation projects elsewhere. AySA s mandate stems from a political decision made by the national government that introduced significant changes to the status of water and sanitation services. Those services are now formally recognised as human rights and as public goods that cannot be treated as commodities governed by market forces. There remain enormous challenges on the ground, but the government is working along with the utility to achieve the full universalisation of essential services. The case of AySA contains many lessons about the challenges and opportunities facing governments left to pick up the bits and pieces bequeathed by weakly regulated privatisation processes, and how they can deliver the universal quality services required for civilised life in the 21st century. 72 Endnotes 1 Daniel Azpiazu passed away shortly after completing his work on this chapter. As a researcher committed to the defence of the public good he made a substantial contribution to the understanding of the causes of socio-economic inequality and injustice in Argentina, including those associated with the privatisation of essential public services. 2 Idelovitch, E. and Ringskog, K. (1995) Private sector participation in water supply and sanitation in Latin America. Washington, DC: World Bank. 3 Resolution 155/1992 from the Secretariat of Public Works and Communications (SOPyC) granted the concession to AASA; the Resolution was confirmed by Decree 787/1993 from the National Government. 4 ETOSS (Ente Tripartito de Obras y Servicios Sanitarios), Resolution 81/ Decree of Necessity and Urgency 303/ ETOSS (2003) Informe sobre el grado de cumplimiento alcanzado por el contrato de concesión de Aguas Argentinas S.A., Nota UNIREN, no. 73. Buenos Aires: ETOSS. 7 CRCOSP (Comisión de Renegociación de Contratos de Obras y Servicios Públicos) (2003) Informe del equipo técnico y análisis, sector agua y saneamiento sobre el procedimiento de documento de consulta de Aguas Argentinas S.A. Buenos Aires: CRCOSP. inf_doc_cons_aguas.pdf (accessed 12 December 2011). 8 AASA s main shareholders filed their case to the ICSID as Suez, Sociedad General de Aguas de Barcelona S.A. and Vivendi Universal S.A v. Argentine Republic (ICSID Case No. ARB/03/19); others such as Anglian Water Limited presented it before the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).

75 Who takes the risks? Water remunicipalisation in Hamilton, Canada In 2004, the Canadian city of Hamilton decided not to renew the contract it had rubberstamped 10 years earlier with a local private water company, Philip Utilities Management Corporation, for the maintenance and operation of its water and wastewater treatment plant. At the time of its signature, this public-private partnership contract was the biggest in North America and brought high hopes for the city s development. However, these promises soon gave way to disappointment and confusion: the contract changed hands several times, the workforce was cut by more than half and operational failures accumulated. Despite these shortcomings, the decision not to renew the contract did not come easily. In fact, a majority of the municipal council remained in favour of private sector involvement. What made the difference was the sustained campaign of local civil society groups and a handful of local politicians who pointed at the previous contract s flaws and at the operational failures of the private operators. Growing awareness of these problems forced a shift of the allocation of risks to the private sector, making it economically unattractive for private operators to bid on the new tender. And since no company was interested in taking on the full liabilities associated with the contract, the city had no choice but to take it back in-house. This chapter explains why and how the privatisation occurred in the first place, followed by a detailed account of the remunicipalisation campaign and an assessment of the new water systems achievements and challenges since. Hamilton and its water systems Hamilton is a medium-sized port city of 490,000 inhabitants located at the south-west end of Lake Ontario in Canada, halfway between Toronto and the US border. Founded at the beginning of the 19th century, the city became a heavy industry centre, developing large steel facilities producing 60% of the steel made in Canada. Although still prominent in Hamilton s skyline and air composition, the steel mills and their supplying plants no longer have the importance they once had in terms of employment and contribution to the region s wealth. The city is in the midst of an economic transition marked by its industrial pollution legacy, high unemployment and relative poverty (it has the lowest average household income in the province). A certain social polarisation can be observed between the working class neighbourhoods of the old city on the shores of Lake Ontario, and the relatively recent affluent ones perched on the Niagara Escarpment. The city was amalgamated with its six immediate municipal neighbours in , following pressures by the Ontario provincial government to cut administrative costs. Hamilton gets almost all its water from a deep-water intake pipe in Lake Ontario, some distance offshore. Water quality in the Great Lakes was not always good with neigh- 75

76 Chapter Five bouring Lake Erie being declared biologically dead in the 1970s but according to current managers of the city s water systems quality at source is now satisfactory and the water only needs bacterial treatment to reach drinking quality (regulated at the provincial level). The quantity of water available has not historically been a problem, although increasing draw on the Great Lakes basin has been contributing to lower water levels, which could affect Hamilton in the future. A unique feature of Hamilton s water systems is the fact that almost all drinking water and wastewater is treated in one combined plant, the Woodward plant next to the dyke between Lake Ontario and Hamilton Harbour (see map). First built in 1860, the plant has since supplied water to all Hamiltonians as well as sustained the city s industrial prosperity. On the downside, it has become one of the main point sources of pollution in the harbour, which was listed as a Great Lakes Area of Concern in the 1987 Protocol of the US-Canada Water Quality Agreement. 1 Hamilton Harbour Watershed Toronto Niagara Falls, US border 76 Source: Adapted from the Hamilton Harbour Remedial Action Plan Report, 2010 update.

Global civil society beyond the good and the bad Håkan Thörn and Heidi Moksnes What is global civil society? And what is the meaning of global civil society? A few years ago, there was a debate on whether

Governance as Stewardship: Decentralization and Sustainable Human Development by Jerry VanSant Research Triangle Institute USA EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Introduction The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Dr. Ulla Mikota Deputy Director General German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) The BMZ initiative for an International Tax Compact Keynote speech, held at the International

SOCIAL RESISTANCE IN EL ALTO - BOLIVIA AGUAS DEL ILLIMANI, A CONCESSION TARGETING THE POOR1 by Julián Pérez On 24 July 1997, a contract for the concession of potable water and sewer services was signed

Building Partnerships for Aid Effectiveness 1. Introduction I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude to the Ugandan National Academy of Sciences for according me the honour of addressing this important

JANUARY 1999 Key questions and concepts In its April 1998 Green Paper on welfare reform, the new Government argues that its policy reforms will follow a third way : The welfare state now faces a choice

Four Pillars of Urban Sustainability Submission Introduction The sustainability of a city can, in part, be measured by the quality of its infrastructure. Physical assets such as roads, sewer lines, transit,

Sundsvall Statement on Supportive Environments for Health Third International Conference on Health Promotion, Sundsvall, Sweden, 9-15 June 1991 The Third International Conference on Health Promotion: Supportive

FROM TERRIBLE TO TERRIFIC UNDERGRADUATE ECONOMICS CURRICULA: An evidence- based assessment of an intellectual disaster, and a proposal for an alternative approach to economics teaching 1 PEPS- Économie

Trustee Leadership Forum for Retirement Security Inaugural Meeting Summary On May 17-18, 2011, the Initiative for Responsible Investment hosted a meeting of laboraffiliated public and Taft-Hartley pension

TEACHING OF STATISTICS IN NEWLY INDEPENDENT STATES: THE CASE OF KAZAKSTAN Guido Ferrari, Dipartimento di Statistica G. Parenti, Università di Firenze, Italy The aim of this report is to discuss the state

TlB Our approach to investments on the stock market Introduction This document contains the third version of the Investment Strategy for stock market investments used by Triodos Investment Management B.V.

Brussels, 31 May 2011 Joint position on the Consultation Paper on the Green Paper on the future of the VAT Towards a simpler, more robust and efficient VAT system COM(2010) 695 final Introduction Conscious

Can China s Rise Continue? David M. Kotz Professor, Department of Economics University of Massachusetts Amherst and Distinguished Professor, School of Economics Shanghai University of Finance and Economics

The future agenda for development cooperation: voices of Dutch society Contribution prepared for the High Level Panel on the Post 2015 development agenda - March 2013 Prepared by NCDO, in cooperation with

NATIONAL COMPETITION POLICY REVIEW Of the AMBULANCE SERVICES ACT 1986 GOVERNMENT RESPONSE PART 1 INTRODUCTION In 1995, all Australian governments agreed, through the Competition Principles Agreement, to

Maintaining voluntary sector autonomy while promoting public accountability: managing government funding of voluntary organisations Royal Irish Academy Third Sector Research Programme Working paper No.

SLIDE 1: Good morning; I would like to thank the organizers for the opportunity to speak today on a significant issue the relationship between tobacco taxation and public health. Much of the background

Political Economy of Taxation in Africa: Fiscal Legitimacy and Public Expenditure Introduction The issue addressed in this paper is the link between the political credibility or legitimacy of the state

European Population doubled (1850-1914) Thomas Malthus Economist in the late 1700s-early 1800s felt Europeans will not be able to eat if population increased After World War II, Europeans and other industrial

1. Care manager: rhetoric or reality Tad Kubisa Director of Social Services, Cambridgeshire When Griffiths presented his report Community Care - Agenda for Action to the Secretary of State, directors of

CALL FOR PROPOSALS PEOPLE s RIGHT TO WATER WHEN FACING EXTRACTIVE ACTIVITIES France Libertés Danielle Mitterrand Foundation is launching a call for proposals to support projects, led by non-profit organizations,

1 Centre for History and Economics: Meeting on United Nations Archives. Trinity College, Cambridge, December 6, 2002 State of UN Archives: Current issues The first aim of the meeting was to try to form

Achievements and challenges of the single market S&D responses to citizens top 10 concerns The European economic model must be based on three principles: competition which stimulates, co-operation which

12 Is China Catching Up with the US? Kenneth Lieberthal Opinion Kenneth Lieberthal Is China Catching Up with the US? While China has emerged as a key player in global affairs, significant challenges to

Resource allocation in mental health A Discussion Paper from The Centre for Welfare Reform on behalf of the Care Pathways and Packages Project Programme Board and the Yorkshire and Humber Mental Health

Trusts Explained Trusts Explained 2 Many people, often without realising it, will come into contact at some point of their lives with a trust in one form or another. Yet trusts are widely misunderstood

Guide to Transparency in Public Finances Looking Beyond the Core Budget 2. Tax Expenditures www.openbudgetindex.org Introduction For more than a decade, civil society organizations around the world, as

ARTICLE BASED ON INTERVIEWS AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS WITH DONG ENERGY Business model innovation as a response to increased competition in the energy sector By Thomas Børve and Johan Lawaetz Increased competition

MOVING OUT HOW LONDON S HOUSING SHORTAGE IS THREATENING THE CAPITAL S COMPETITVENESS Background This report outlines the findings of four surveys commissioned by Turner & Townsend and London First on the

Second International Conference on Health Promotion, Adelaide, South Australia, 5-9 April 1998 Adelaide Recommendations on Healthy Public Policy (WHO/HPR/HEP/95.2) The adoption of the Declaration of Alma-Ata

OECD Studies on Water A Framework for Financing Water Resources Management In Brief October 2012 Key messages There is a clear and pressing need for governments around the world to strengthen the financial

Capacity Building in the New Member States and Accession Countries on Further Climate Change Action Post-2012 (Service Contract N o 070402/2004/395810/MAR/C2) 29 November 2007 Almost all New Members States

Blending Corporate Governance with Information Security WHAT IS CORPORATE GOVERNANCE? Governance has proved an issue since people began to organise themselves for a common purpose. How to ensure the power

A Guide to Identifying, Assessing & Contracting with Executive Search Firms Great people are critical to the success of every business. Hiring them, however, is easier said than done. The best are rare,

How the role of innovation within the business and the way companies innovate are being transformed. Unleashing the power of innovation www.pwc.com 2 Unleashing the power of innovation Gauging changing

8 The Hospital Strategy Project in South Africa Monitor Company, Health Partners International, Center for Health Policy, and National Labor and Economic Development Institute, South Africa This chapter

A FRAMEWORK FOR NATIONAL HEALTH POLICIES, STRATEGIES AND PLANS June 2010 A FRAMEWORK FOR NATIONAL HEALTH POLICIES, STRATEGIES AND PLANS June 2010 This paper reviews current practice in and the potential

Global and US Trends in Management Consulting A Kennedy Information Perspective Summary There is firm evidence of significant growth in the management consulting industry in 2005 and 2006. In some markets,

The Underground Infrastructure Crisis: Rebuilding Water and Sewer Systems without a Flood of Red Ink NTU Issue Brief #176 By Bruce Hollands January 18, 2010 Introduction: Valuable and Critical Assets With

Inequity of the Circular Economy By Daniel Cochran, Appalachian State University 2015 Author Note Daniel Cochran, Masters of Business Administration, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina

621 REGULATIONS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION (MPA) (See also General Regulations) Any publication based on work approved for a higher degree should contain a reference to the effect

Hong Kong Declaration on Sustainable Development for Cities 1. We, the representatives of national and local governments, community groups, the scientific community, professional institutions, business,

Europe s Financial Crisis: The Euro s Flawed Design and the Consequences of Lack of a Government Banker Abstract This paper argues the euro zone requires a government banker that manages the bond market

E. Professional values and ethics CORPORATE CODE OF ETHICS An ethical code typically contains a series of statements setting out the organization s values and explaining how it sees its responsibilities

July 2014 The Future ICSO Burkhard Gnärig, the Executive Director of the International Civil Society Centre, has been a leader in international civil society for over two decades. Allen White of the Tellus

Brussels, 12 June 2014 Opinion.05 CEEP OPINION ON THE TRANSATLANTIC TRADE AND INVESTMENT PARTNERSHIP (TTIP) Executive Summary Focus 1: The respect of the EU Treaty Principle and EU political balance on

U European Payment Card Systems for the 21 st Century A paper from MasterCard Europe For four decades, MasterCard Europe 1 has been working successfully with European banks to deliver secure, efficient

Audit Reports of the Masters Programme in Finance and the Masters Programme in Economics, The Graduate School, School of Business, Economics, and Law, University of Gothenburg Prepared by Shubhashis Gangopadhyay

Memorandum by the Association of Investment Companies (AIC) FSA proposals fail to maintain standards for UK stock markets: The broader implications of its review of the investment entity rules 1. The AIC

Boards and CEOs preparing for growth Almost half of the CEOs in Denmark s largest corporations consider the financial crisis to be over and expect positive growth in the near future. This calls for preparation

Summary of Chicago, Illinois, Meeting about a Long-Term Proactive Initiative on Tax and Budget Issues I. About the Meeting The meeting was held on March 22, 2004, from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and was hosted

IPPR speech Pension reform in the public services 23 June 2011 Good morning everybody. Can I start by thanking the IPPR for giving me this opportunity to say a few words about pension reform in the public

THE TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE FOR MICROFINANCE Triodos Facet Geert Jan Schuite and Alberic Pater (gj.schuite@triodosfacet.nl) (a.pater@triodosfacet.nl) INTRODUCTION The past decade, we have witnessed an unprecedented

INTRODUCTION This Declaration, prepared within the framework of the Belgian Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, is addressed to the Member States of the Council of Europe,

Relationship counselling: Realising public-private partnership growth opportunities March 2012 Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are set to increase dramatically over the next three years. Yet with the

OECD Insights Human Capital: How what you know shapes your life Summary in English The world of work has seen enormous change over the past couple of decades. Manufacturing jobs account for an ever smaller

Private Television in Poland & Slovakia, March 2003 Matúš Minárik CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS The present policy paper and recommendations result from the policy research done in the framework of the

Abbotsford, Mission Part Ways over P3 Water Project As their populations swell, the towns no longer find it easy to share. By: By Tom Sandborn, 6 July 2011, TheTyee.ca View full article and comments: http://thetyee.ca/news/2011/07/06/abbotsfordmissionp3/

Presentation on behalf of Centre for Applied Legal Studies, Wits University (CALS) & Partners to the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights Open Consultation on National Action Plans on Business

CONVENING REPORT Fiduciary Duty in Support of Responsible Investment January 14, 2015 Introduction On January 14, 2015, the Initiative for Responsible Investment held a Convening to discuss Fiduciary Duty